out. these were -- to suggest that ukraine caused it is like the old male adage that a woman caused herself to be raped. ukraine was and is a sovereign nation that has a right to join nato. since when does vladimir putin get to dictate who does and doesn't enter nato with sovereign nations? that is not a vassal of pew 10. ukraine is a sovereign nation. host: you bring up 1938, the nobel peace prize. in the washington times, bringing up both of those things as well. he writes that wall street journal columnist wilma brennan >> you can continue watching this on our website. we take you to the annual conservative political action conference near the nation's capital, where house speaker

mike johnson is participating in a fireside chat. this is live coverage on c-span. >> all the patriots together. this is great. about to make america great again for the next four years. thank you for putting this together. on behalf of newsmax, thank you for being with us. as everyone just heard, kash patel -- [applause] it's official. murkowski and collins voted against him. [booing] mitch mcconnell voted for him. and announced that he is not going to run again in two years. [applause] i guess my question is, which one surprised you more today? rep. johnson: i'm glad he did it and i want to to my hat to leaders soon in the senate republicans. they're getting the job done. the trunk cabinet is being confirmed. we need that. president trump needs his team.

i'm grateful they are moving as quickly as they are. they are setting a good pace. so far, so good. >> only twice and i believe 85 years has the president's party picked up seats in the midterm elections. but you are going to change that in two years. -- rep. johnson: we are. we are. we are going to define history. we are going to grow the house majority in two years and not lose the majority. i think everybody recognizes president trump for years and not to. if they took the majority back, they would try to impeach him. it would open the border wide. they would create all sorts of chaos. we have to win, and we will, because we have a very favorable landscape. as we are sitting here today, 13 house democrats are sitting in districts that president trump won pretty handily.

there is more than 20 districts that president trump came within five points of winning. we have a great landscape to play not defense, but offense, to flip those seats into our column. and on top of that, we have a historic demographic shift in the election cycle. we had a record number of hispanic and latino voters, lack and african-american voters, jewish voters, union workers, groups that had not traditionally been in the republican party. on the sheer force of donald trump's persona, they came into the party, and they will be with us for quite some time. now we have a once in a generation opportunity to demonstrate to these people that it truly is our conservative policies that are better for them. it leads to human flourishing. it is better for families, communities, states, in the nation as a whole. if we do that, we will hold this majority for quite some time. rep. johnson: question -- rob: a question i have wanted to ask you for a while. air force one, there was a

photograph. there are four people in this photograph. kid rock, rfk junior, elon musk, donald trump, and speaker mike johnson. rep. johnson: that's my crew, ma'am. rob: did you think that crew would be together at 2000 feet? rep. johnson: you left out jelly roll. it's a great group. we went to the ufc fight and we did a round trip to palm beach, south florida, in the same night. we arrived back about 4:25 in the morning, and everybody you named was up like it was the middle of the afternoon. it was a great event. that is the power of president trump. he brings together all sorts of people that would not otherwise be unified like that. it is a great thing for the country. it is unifying for the country. there is talent. it is a motley crue sometimes, but in a beautiful way. that has been one of the highlights of being speaker is hanging out with him.

ask -- rob: can you explain why the left is angry at donald trump for trying to end two wars he did not start? i wish i could explain democrats. they are enraged about everything. the policies -- the party is in total disarray. they don't have a leader. they don't have a real vision forward. the entire platform has been repudiated by the american people. the woke, progressive nonsense has been stamped out. all they know to do is to lash out. think of it. they are opposing the ending of a war. they are opposing the doge effort. but elon and the team are doing is what congress has not had the ability to do. they have cracked the code. they are inside the belly of the beast of the bureaucracy. and the algorithms are crawling through. that is right. they are exposing this massive fraud, waste, and abuse that we have not been able to uncover

because the deep state has hidden it from us. this is a revolutionary kind of moment. it really is. i told elon in his office monday before last, you think of this like a scientist and a data analyst, and i think of it like a constitutional law attorney and a historian. what we are going to do here is bring back the founders original intent for the federal government, right? i mean, you know -- you are a student of history. the founders wanted a lean, small federal government. they wanted most of the power pushed down to the states and they wanted the federal government to be closely monitored by the elected representatives of the people in congress. the problem is congress has not been able to do that job because they have been hiding the evidence. elon is on the inside. that is why the democrats are nervous. he is right over the target right now. bob: it has been remarkable to see the department of government efficiency -- that is what does stands for.

and democrats are almost in this position right now of being against their primary mission, which is to save the american taxpayer money, each to me does not make any sense. rep. johnson: they like to spend the taxpayer dollar. they are for big government. progressives want the government to control every aspect of our lives. the last four years of the biden-harris administration, it was regulations on steroids. we have an opportunity to fix everything. we have a very aggressive legislative agenda because we have been given this opportunity by the voters to fix it. rob: president trump has 77 million popular votes, right? in the house, house republicans have 74.8 million popular votes. that is the highest total we have ever gotten. so we see it as a mandate to fix it. and you are seeing that happen very aggressively. the president has over 300

executive actions already. and we are going to codify so much of what he is doing, so the next team cannot unwind it. rob: in america, we presidential elections every four years. we did so during covid. we did so during the second world war. we did so during the civil war. during the war of 1812, the white house was burned to the ground three months before james madison was elected. how important is it for ukraine to hold presidential elections? rep. johnson: very important, of course. rob: there were canceled last year. rep. johnson: the president has pointed that out. rob: they claim to be a democracy. rep. johnson: we need an end to the conflict. i've done panels at two different events this morning. the republican governors association asked me about this. i went to the fortune 500 executives. they want to know the same thing. what is president trump doing? i said you have got to give him

room to operate and do what he does. he is doing a level set. you have got to get both parties to come and bring about an end to this conflict, serve america's interest and everybody's interests around the world. i think of it like a mediation or arbitration. i am a recovery lawyer. forgive me. i think in those terms. when you start an arbitration between parties, you do not bring them into the room for the first meeting. you do it separately. i think the linsky complaining he was not invited to the first meeting with saudi arabia and russia is misplaced. what trump is trying to do is do a level set come up the conditions in place for the real negotiation to happen, and we have got to allow him to do what he does. member, he wrote the art of the deal. he knows what he is doing. rob: if that takes six months or drags on, do you see another funding bill for a war in ukraine? rep. johnson: there is no

appetite for that. what do you think? [audience booing] rep. johnson: we have to bring it to an end. our european allies understand it as well. this is drug on too long. russia has lost almost 700,000 troops, maybe more. the ukrainians have suffered great losses. have to bring an end to the conflict. it is time for it to end, and president trump is the brute force that can make that happen. rob: the president said a percentage of savings could go back to the american people in the form of what he called does -- doge stimulus checks. how would that work? rep. johnson: politically, that would be great for us, sending everybody a check. rob: i just saw everybody look up. rep. johnson: i know. if you think about our core principles, fiscal responsibility is what we do as conservatives. that is our brand. we have a $36 trillion federal debt.

we have a giant deficit. i think we need to pay down the credit card. that is what i think we need to do. [applause] rob: we keep hearing about this one big beautiful bill. how big? how beautiful? rep. johnson: it is going to be so big. the beauty of the reconciliation -- i don't want to get too deep in the weeds on procedure. normally, you need a 60 vote threshold in the senate to do anything of substance. budget reconciliation is the one exception where you only need 51 votes in the senate, a bare majority. we are going to use this reconciliation process to achieve most of the priorities we ran on in the election cycle and that president trump committed to. so i could be here a long time, listing all those things, but clearly it is the most important interest of the country. we are going to secure that border once and for all. we are going to do that. we are going to get the economy going again, the american

economy, and make sure we do not have the largest tax increase in u.s. history, which would happen at the end of this year if we fail in this mission, because the tax cut and jobs act, the cuts expire. we are going to get the economy going. we are going to get back to american energy dominance in this bill. and we are going to take a blow torch the regulatory state. lots of details. lots of subcategories under all that, but it is going to be a big beautiful bill, and it has to be by necessity, because that gives us the highest probability of success, memory i have a small margin in the house. one vote, what could go wrong? but everybody is committed to delivering the america first agenda, and that is why we are going to get it done. rob: what is your working dynamic like with senate majority thune. for the first time in a long time, the senate has a bigger majority than the house.

rep. johnson: by necessity, the chambers have to work together. that is really an innovation. as soon as i became speaker of the house in october, the first instinct i had was, we meet with the senate republicans and align the chambers. it is common sense. so we are doing that. you are going to see no daylight between the republicans in the house and senate. rob: mr. speaker, there was some reporting this week the democrats are planning what they are calling a super ticket in 2028 -- kamala harris and aoc. are you prepared for that? rep. johnson: let it be so. is that real? rob: that is a legitimate -- i use the word legitimate very loosely nowadays with the media, but that report is out there. i don't know who would run for president and who would be vp.

rep. johnson: i hope that happens. rob: do the democrats have a leader at any level? is it still joe biden? rep. johnson: he wasn't the leader the last four years. they are in a real bind. they don't have a vision. they don't have a platform. they have to do a reinvention of the party, but they are divided because they are in the blame game as they do the autopsy of what happened in the election cycle. it is an interesting time. our party is in great shape right now. we are very unified. we have a coalition. and we have the principles and the policies that truly are better for the american people. you know what happened in the last four years? the woke progressive left moved so aggressively, so quickly, and it went all the way to the left, and it clicked, and now it is coming back. we are a center-right country. we always have been. we always will be.

i think president trump is seen as a force helping push the pendulum back in place. we are going to seize that historic moment. i believe we can bring about a much better outcome for people. >> elon musk treated the real reason so many democrats are upset about entitlements is they are using taxpayer money to attract and retain illegal immigrants, their future voters. is that what you think the last four years at both our borders has been all about? rep. johnson: 100%. they opened the borders wide. they did not care about the calamity and the heartache and the death it caused to american citizens, because it was a power play. they want to change the outcome of the senses in five years. this is very serious, and we are going to be dealing with the effects of this, the catastrophe, for years to come. it is a terrible tragedy. and don't ever forget that that was their motive. it was for their own political

gain that they put the american people in such jeopardy. fentanyl alone was the leading cause of death, and that has flowed over the border. human trafficking all the atrocities. they lost hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied minors to traffickers. all of it, they allowed. they could have sealed that border any moment. the president had the authority. i asked him personally on multiple occasions. i pleaded and begged joe biden, use your authority. he looked down at the floor, shoveled his shoes, and said, i can't do that. the american people let him know how they felt about that. rob: now that the horses out of the barn and joe biden is in row home with beach, retired -- how did you see him in those moments when you were with him in person? rep. johnson: there were only a couple of occasions. it did not allow me to meet with him one on one. but it is now widely reported a story of something that happened

i think in early february of last year, when i was in the oval office and i asked him why he paused liquefied natural gas exports to our european allies. they are going to have to go to vladimir putin to get their needs met. he tried to argue with me and tell me he did not do that. it occurred to me in this dialogue that he genuinely did not know what he had signed, that they had put this executive in front of him and he did not understand what it was. that was a very alarming moment of realization for me, and i think the whole country knows now. it was a dangerous time, a very perilous time for us, particularly that last year of his administration. but thank god that president trump is back in the white house. rob: i think this room knows you, but i think the american people are still getting to know you. and i thought this was wonderful. your son is on the boxing team at the naval academy. i did not know that.

how is he doing? rep. johnson: well, he is bigger than his father. he is doing great. he made it to the semifinals in the brigade championship last friday and lost in a one-point split decision to a young man who was three years older than him and had been boxing about six years longer, i think. he held his own. he has been boxing seven months. he did jiu-jitsu a long time. a tough kid. rob: does he learn that from his father? rep. johnson: of course. no, he is a tough kid. he takes after his mother. rob: ladies and gentlemen, the speaker of the house, mike johnson. ♪ >> president trump is back in

the white house. >> donald trump, president. >> he is back in the white house. >> donald trump has taken back america. pres. trump: i started quite a while ago at cpac, and i enjoyed it so much that i came back for a second one. then a third. then i said, let's run for president. five years ago, six years ago, he says, you should run for politics. he is the one that said you should run for the presidency of the united states. >> it is my honor to introduce our president, donald trump. pres. trump: i want to thank match lap and his incredible wife and boss. who have been fantastic friends and supporters, and so great when i watch them on television, defending me. nobody has a chance. i love this place.

i love you people. you never stop fighting for america, and i will never, ever stop fighting for you. we know there are still more records to be shuttered, more summits to be scaled, more tramps to be realized, and more amazing history waiting to be written. the american adventure has only just begun. god bless america, and we will see you next year. thank you very much. pres. trump: you never stop fighting for america, and i will never, ever stop fighting for you. matt: cpac is not just a conference. we are fighting 306 d five days a year on all the issues you care about. please go to your badge. there is a qr code. check it out and see. fighting anti-semitism, or rating members of congress or

state legislators, or criminal justice reform -- you name it, we are into it. check it out right here. everything they said about him has been wrong. i don't know how he does it. fix it has always been a battle against donald trump. >> it puts a bright light on the system of justice that only seems to go after president trump. c is not stuck in this bureaucratic machination. he was very clear if you hit your target, and you work and do a great job -- he loves the economy. >> trump does the same thing in a different medium. he is talking directly to the people. >> he is transformational. he came from outside the republican party. >> he is a great closer. he understands the most important issues to voters. clocks not only is america a great country, but we americans are good people.

>> donald trump stands for everything that is good, everything we need, what needs to be changed in our society today. >> think about the trump supporter that was demonized, that was taken down, that was criticized, that was targeted. inc. about that person out there. they are winning tonight. the american people, they have spoken up tonight. >> we have just lived through history. >> being woke is easy when it was a call to defund the police. it is different when your fellow ideologues start cheering for your beheading. this next video, does this look like london to you? the pro-hamas protests making for an interesting political moment at harvard, university recently raised the worst -- rated the worst school for free speech in america. what would harvard do, a school that will expel you for using

the wrong pronoun and making a pink haired trans girl cry. harvard miraculously turned into free-speech absolution. apparently there is nothing offensive, although everything is offensive to harvard. there is nothing offensive about celebrating the murder of a thousand people. >> ladies and please welcome from florida senator rick scott. [laughter] [applause] good afternoon. welcome to the capitol.

what do you think about kash patel? you know, i told cpac leadership that next year's event should be down in my home state of florida. you know, we also have a great view of the gulf of -- america. by the way, the weather is a little bit better. it is about 75 degrees. so the first thing is i want to thank you. i want to thank cpac for all your friendship and support. last year, i ran to be senate majority leader, and many of you very vocally supported me. and i will be eternally grateful . your vocal support changed the senate. you did it. now, for too long, washington

has been known for all the wrong things. biggest spending, no results. waste. inefficiency. washington was about enriching politicians like nancy pelosi. [audience billing] -- booing] sen. scott: bureaucrats like anthony fauci, at the expense of the american people. washington was about protecting the status quo, because of the politicians. it was about a radical social environmental agenda, about forever wars, open borders, lies and no accountability. washington was about washington. it was not about the american people, who simply wanted to lead their lives without bureaucrats telling them what to do.

all of that is changing. it is changing fast, because of one person. donald j. trump being in the white house. now, president trump is bringing common sense back to washington. he is bringing transparency and accountability back to washington. he is working with great leaders like elon musk to bring efficiency back to washington. and the democrats are complaining like crazy, what he is changing washington in record time. he is bringing the voice of the american people back to washington. president trump is making america great again. now, what does he deserve? he deserves our thanks and our respect. what does he get instead? he gets lies and obstruction from the democrats, the mainstream media, and even some

establishment washington republicans desperately clinging to relevancy. mitch mcconnell supports merrick garland's nomination for attorney general. he has already voted against three of president trump's cabinet nominees. aoc is blurring that the trump administration is a threat to democracy and is ushering in a constitutional crisis. guess what? here is the good news. they are the past. their voices no longer matter. their shadow can no longer hang over politics. they lost. the american people one. what happened last fall? president trump and an army of supporters like you, all across this great country, started moving. we are going to change and reset our country for a golden era.

the future is about you and your hopes and your dreams. it is about us. it is about amplifying the voices of the american people and finally, finally giving the government they are paying for and they deserve. now, a couple years ago, in the midst of joe biden's disaster presidency, or whoever was in charge, i put out a plan with some ideas to rescue this country from the radical democrats who are trying to destroy our values and bankrupt us in the process. now, the way that democrats and astonishment republicans responded, he would have thought i broke the law. the craziest part of it -- i could not tell who hated it more, joe biden or mitch mcconnell. think about it. i proposed really crazy ideas. just think about these.

teach our students about the u.s. constitution. that is a hard one. the bill of rights, our founding fathers. have kids recite the pledge of allegiance and salute the flag. eliminating the department of education. [applause] sen. scott: banning the federal government from asking american citizens to disclose their race or skin color on government forms. funding our police and enforcing all of our laws. securing the border. build the wall. name the wall after donald trump. start growing the american economy, not the washington economy. enacting term limits for a member of congress.

and federal bureaucrats. protecting the integrity of the american election. protecting, defending, promoting the american family at all costs. believing in science. guess what? men are men. women are women. unborn babies are babies. sorry, democrats. i was tarred and feathered for proposing such crazy ideas. but it was worth it because it was time for republicans, honest republicans, to stand up and fight back. here in washington, we are seeing what truly fighting that

gets us. they are scared their lives are being exposed. the money spigot is being turned off. ngo's across the world and liberal think tanks around the world are scrambling because their golden goose has finally laid its last leg. corporate america is tripping over itself to reverse racist d.e.i. programs that ceased to divide us. now fighting back gets us a government focused on a stronger future. a president who really cares, who truly fights for us. and will not accept the status quo any longer. my plan to rescue our country -- failure is not an option. the future of this country depends on each and every one of us, and the actions we take

today, tomorrow, and the months to come. i have great kids. many of you in this room and watching on tv, you have got kids and grandkids as well. in america, we used to believe we had a duty, a sacred duty, to leave things better for our children and our grandchildren than we found them. two trillion dollar deficits. $36 trillion in debt. failing schools. high crime rates. that has not happened. instead, our political and cultural rot has made things harder for our kids and the grandkids. it is hard to get a good education now. it is harder to buy a home. it is harder to start a business. it is harder to get a good paying job. it is harder to live the american dream.

that cannot be our legacy. this of us fighting side-by-side have faced significant obstacles. unfortunately, it is our own party. we have kept fighting. we have to fight harder now. we all watched what happened in butler. we saw president trump stand up and raise his fist. fight, fight, fight. even in the face of unimaginable obstacles, he kept fighting. we know he is going to keep fighting. i know i am going to keep fighting, and i know everybody in this room is going to keep fighting with us. thank you for what you are doing. god bless every one of you.

god bless the president of the united states, donald j. trump, and god bless this great country. have a great day. bye-bye. ♪ >> what are you watching out for these days. they partnered with big health insurance companies. like applying big discounts. instead aarp giving politicians not seniors control with no guarantees. and it is aarp belong american seniors are blocking, think again. >> every institution is under attack, the home, the church,

the government and people are asking what is the truth. >> jesus christ claims the ultimate truth. >> do you think the proo ject ever ended. the central intelligence agency is involved in mind manipulation. >> we have one gd and one savior. >> already the biggest news station in poland. >> only international tv station that interviewed donald j. trump. say hello to the poland people. >> we are not backing down-a english speaking european news. support the revolution. >> make europe red again.

>> this is rei publica. >> check out our membership circles. >> we are from the government and here to help. >> i think you know i have always felt the nine most terrifying words in the english language are i'm from the government and i'm here to help. >> we are he's here to help. >> iran, their goal to draw the u.s. into this broader conflict, no question that only does the iranian government saying death to israel and chanted death to america. they hate us. they hate our culture and what we stand for which is freedom and religious freedom and for them they want to take us down and you have a commander in

chief who is hiding in the basement that needs to be out there every single day answering the tough questions. instead they say climate change remains the most important national security crisis that we're facing, they have ten they have said to iran while knowing. and hamas and over $700 million to hezbollah. clearly it is about sponsoring terrorism and destroying israel and then america. >> ladies and gentlemen, up next please welcome senator from missouri, eric smith and mike

davis. >> thank you. >> thank you for coming. we are going to talk about big tech, google, amazon, facebook and apple and what we need to do end their gate keeper power over information and started under the trump 45 administration where we saw our 100-year-old ant thy trust laws get dusted off and ended big tech's ant thy trust amnesty and want to use ant thy trust which is law enforcement to go after these these big tech monopoly. they have too much power and

anticompetitive. and i always said that the biden administration did right was they continued president trump's antitrust enforcement under the antitrust and president trump is committed to finishing the job. you see this with his appointment of andrew ferguson to chair the federal trade commission and seeing it with president trump's pick of gail slater to lead the ant thy trust division. these big tech crush competition and shutter small businesses and cancel conservatives and others with whom they disagree. i will tell you the tip of the sphere has been senator smith

from missouri. i am pleased to talk to him today about these issues. and i want to start this off to get your thoughts on ant thy trust and big tech and what you think needs to happen. >> great to be back at c pac. what i great crowd. and this feels a lot different now that we won in november than a couple of years ago. there is a new sheriff in town. i think that for most people, people in this room that are conservative, over the last four years in particular what happens when you have these massive concentrations of power and you see it collide with the fundamental belief that when we're born, we are born with certain rights and those rights come from god. and the first one that is mentioned in our constitution,

our bill of rights is the right to speak your mind. fundamental value of human expression. government's role is to make sure it protects those rights. like the foundation of the country and we believe that. when you have these massive companies that infringe upon that right and sometimes at the be left of the federal government, it's a scary situation. and in my previous job before that, i was attorney general for the state of most. it was -- missouri, it was a great gig. i loved it. turned into murphy into missouri. you have to remember. i think it is important to go back in time really before elon musk had bought twitter and before jim jordan was holding hearings. and it's interesting, jen psaki

before covid masking and forced vaccination, the raw power. and jen psaki said we are flagging this for facebook and wanted to start a governance board and remember marry popins and singing about how great this is. by the government. and we got discovery in order that went to the supreme court and what we found was shocking. we had an idea of what was happening but never prepared of what we found and saying, take this down, this is misinformation, you need to take this down. they were threatening to take

away social security protections. as this unfolded it showed to the and federal government working with big tech giants. and this is the fight, this is the fight long-term for us, the democrats and liberals have ceded the ground to speak your mind. and i think we should own this issue. and the american people lost this the last four years and sent back president trump to fix it. [applause] >> that's exactly right. people need to understand the whole point of antitrust is to protect the free market and you have these trillion dollar monopolies to crush competition and you know longer have a free market. and that's why antitrust laws that have been on the books to

break up this power because if you are a free market conservative like we bothr you should support anthony y trust law enforcement and so you don't need industry-wide regulation. facebook is calling for regulation. of course they are, because they are a big company and can afford to pay for the lawyers and lobbyists and top navigate those regulations. those are entry barriers. remember this about google and youtube. if google competed against youtube and set up acquired u tube no chance that google would be doing that. they would be -- google would be competing with youtube and that is important to remember. i think google in particular.

there has been a lot of attention, i mean elon musk brought twitter and x and it is a platform. and but google is really the -- if you are a business or whatever or you are a political candidate, there is a huge difference between page one of the search and page 12 and nobody gets to see the wizard. >> there are two major antitrust lawsuits working their way and google is the worst of the worst. worst actor. and one is on google search monopoly. and look for things online. the bigger problem is google has an online advertising monopoly and use the money they make with

online advertising monopoly to fund their sensorship and woke nonsense because they have this. and lawsuits started under trump and the credits started under biden and finish with trump's antitrust like gail slater. the big tech platforms and something like news guard. they rate news services and schools like libraries and classrooms and they give conservative news organizations like news mack or fox news or breitbart and give them lower grades and kids don't have conservative news sites but access to and that needs to end as well, they are trying to control information and commerce in this country and just cannot

let this happen. >> the other thing happening, too, it is a great opportunity with having president trump in the white house, having a republican house and senate, we can put structural safeguards in place. section 230 protections, what is that? back in the 90's when the internet was becoming a thing, what congress said was, ok, you are going to be immune from liability because you are a platform. people can go on there, as long as an open platform, you can't be sued for what somebody else says and that is did he not ray 'tissation. and they would be themselves the creance soars. by way of you are going to be an open platform or publisher that gets sued like "60 minutes"

ought to get sued. they are going to pick a team. if you are a bureaucrat and you work to censor americans you ought to be able to be sued by a citizen so it doesn't take an attorney general to do that. you can sue the censors. i think that would dhaing the incentive structure which would be important. and i can't miss the opportunity to point out just how exciting as mike and i and all of you believe, the founders believed in the system of checks and balances and powers spread out. no one person can get so powerful to taig their liberty away. the whole point is to take to protect individual liberty and never contemplated the administrative state as it is

right now. by the way, they don't show up to work anymore. 6% are actually in the offices on any given day. but they have immense power over your lives. and can take away your livelihood. what president trump is embarking on and you see it every day. the democrats are losing their minds because of doge and these efforts to strip away that power and they should. because the people of this country elected one person to run the executive branch and he makes decisions on personnel and on policies and you don't get to send millions of dollars to guatemala for sex changes and think you are immune. that's what this fight is all about. it's an exciting time.

>> thank you for paying for trump's inauguration. zuckerberg contributed. mark zuckerberg spent $400 million chasing president trump out of office in 2020. we have these antitrust woes on the books for 100 years and to these trillion billion tech platforms, nobody is above the law. and one -- with the time we have left and i'm on the judiciary committee and i chair the constitution subcommittee. we have jurisdiction over the first and second amendment.

get ready, we will have fun hearings and hold people taking away. whoever is watching this, stay tuned. but also, what is happening with doge right now and so smart to start with usaid and all of this money going into d.e.i. programming in burma and lgbtq plays in europe and lgbtq cease a.m. yes street in iraq. that's where this money was going and funneled through these n.g.o.'s. the biden administration was using these n.g.o.'s to bring mass mig regulates in our country and flag things for their vast. and we will do investigation.

and want to know why the democrats objecting, there is a lot of corruption that is going to be exposed. i want to end this on this point, senator has been a warrior for president trump's cabinet pick and kash patel was confirmed as our next f.b.i. director. a lot of smart people said his nomination was dead on arrival and now it is director kash patel and thank the senator for what he does for president trump and his nominees. this guy is a warrior. [applause]

>> you came to washington for one of two reasons. one of you came for position, power and fame. who came for you. but if you came to change this town, we came to be sand paper to a culture that despisees change. are you one of those to stand in the gap, if so, come join us as we make national mall our personal declaration. >> we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. >> founders talked about this experiment that god ordained and intervened. >> most of them believed there were no accidents in history.

>> americans today should regain our bearing but our nation is no accident. >> freedom, sovereignty, prosperity, the patriots for europe foundation is on a foundation to make europe great again. led europe. violent crime has surged because of mass immigration. the green deal has put the economy at risk. fake ngo's are interfering. patriots must take action. we bring analysis and organize debates to challenge the woke narrative, patriots for europe foundation. >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome nigel farage.

[applause] >> thank you so much. what a reception. it's great to be here and how amazing it is. 13 years ago, i was the only foreign speaker and now cpac is a global brand. congratulations. for making it happen. and what a time it is across the pond. my country, you can't say anything or you might get put in prison. we are getting poorer. everybody's miserable. governed by a left-wing awful

government. november 5, america is optimistic. it's upbeat. and beginning of a golden age in america. and it is all because of one totally extraordinary individual. you know i can tell you if you take on the establishment, they do not come out with a drink. the whole british establish mant wanted us all the parties, all the big businesses and trade unions. and it was me alone saying this is a crazy idea. we want control of our sovereignty, our borders and back with the british people. and for daring to say that, they made my life help. the tough times i went through,

i was nothing compared to what they put donald j. trump through. it went year after year after year. endless court cases, mainstream media abuse, harassment of his family, banking one of the worst. assassination attempts and yet this man has come through it braver, stronger wiser than at any point. he is the bravest man that i know and we should all applaud him. we really should. we really should. and what a pick for vice president. very often, around the world, american vice-presidents not taken seriously.

but after the speech at the munich security conference, i think we can say with some confidence that the american v.p. is going to be a major part of politics. i loved it. i loved it. did you enjoy his speech? [applause] >> they didn't, did they? they absolutely hated it. it rather admitted me of my time in the european parliament getting up said he had the charisma of a damp rag and that upset them. but j.d. was right. allowed millions of undocumented young males to come into europe, many from war zones to allow those people to come in and come from cultures and countries

where women are treated as second class citizens. seen the massive increases in crime, gang crime, dramatic increases in sexual crime against women. and yet nobody in the european establishment is prepared to put their hands up to recognize the depth of the problem and say sorry to their people. and j.d. called them out in his speech. and he was right. he was right. [applause] he also mentioned the free speech. and i think it is part of american public life. i think he is a hero. you remember 2020 in november. you couldn't say anything about the conduct of the election in this country and couldn't say anything about vaccines or about

lockdowns without social media closing you down and then along came the heroes of free speech, elon musk. [applause] fantastic and he is fighting for free speech and boy if you shall going to have free speech, not link in a free democratic society. it matters that much and i believe that the talent of the world's most successful businessmen going into this amazing doge project, i wish him all the luck in the world and god speed. i really, really do. and american friends we tend to follow. you occasionally follow our friends. you gave us woke.

[laughter] we gave you prince harry. no. you keep him. you keep him. but in 2016, we delivered a political thunderbolt across the whole world and it was called brexit. and i believe that away across the atlantic and helped donald trump win the presidency in november, 2016. well this time, the trump win has the ability not just to save your country and make you more prosperous that government has ever been because that is what is going to happen, but it's also producing a way that is now

coming the other way. across the atlantic. i have been retired from politics for years, but i decided last june, i would get back into politics because i couldn't bear what was happening in my country. and i am now leading the u.k. and topping every opinion poll in britain. [applause] and we are going to win the next general election. we are going to do it. we're going to do it. and what you guys have done. and helping president trump win

85% in this great country to win the house, the senate, the majority vote, all those things you've done the confluence of this man all going to blow back and help us in our endeavors and across the rest of europe, too. and i really that like you british taxpayers have had enough sending money to bangladesh to study shrimp behavior. but we have had enough of free speech, two tier justice, different groups of people being treated differently by the law. we have had enough of being told you can't say that. to hell of that.

we should be allowed to say whatever to hell we want. [applause] and we will. and we will. we will deport those who come into britain illegally. and the one you have just succeeded with. i want to finish by saying. as a regular at cpac and publicly supported president trump and i have been a friend of his for decades, this is a remarkable cpac and celebrate in style. you are going to make america

great again and we will make britain great again. thank you. ♪ >> it's our america, we conquered it, we built it. great values like honesty and fairness. great courage, a great nation needs a free press, newsmax. americans go there and watch it at home and go to newsmax today. it is real news for real people.

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control with verse, impactful, your content and earnings are protected and transparent and yours to control. a community of creators building a new future together. your freedom starts when you press play. >> make sure to go downstairs to go check out all of our incredible sponsors for cpac 2025. >> ladies and gentlemen this is theses cruz and koa host and attorney general pam bondi. [cheers and applause]

>> what a great looking crowd today. >> we are going to be doing our podcast live. you guys are going to be in the podcast with us. i want you to be as loud as you possibly can? are you ready. welcome ted cruz live from cpac 2025. [cheers and applause] i like this time to hang out with fun people. >> it is great to be back with cpac. there is energy, there is excitement. it turns out winning doesn't

suck. and we have a guess, we have the attorney general of the united states, pam bondi. [cheers and applause] >> never invite me to be on the podcast and finally did. >> pam, i will tell you there is some good karma being on this podcast at cpac because the last guest we had is j.d. vance. welcome, you have been attorney general 15 days. >> feels like 15 years. >> i believe you. you got some help. the senate just confirmed kash patel. >> isn't that great. i have been with him on the phone. >> he is going to do fantastic.

15 days, you come into what i think is the most important cabinet position in this administration because we went through four years of biden weaponizing the department of justice and attacking his enemies and support his friends. coming into d.o.j., you have a mission, a mission to restore integrity in the department to end the weaponization. how do you get that do? >> the volume what concerns me the most is the volume of how bad it was and still is. we are working on it, day by day by day. we have a team of great people. i issued 14 executive orders and it's the weaponization ends and ends now. and that's what we did.

>> let me ask you, in the 15 days you have been there, how many d.o.j. employees have said something to the effect of, thank god? >> a lot of them. >> let's look. i spent four years hearing from assist ant u.s. attorneys, f.b.i. agents and men and women who believe in the rule of law and horrified at the poll 'tissation of the f.b.i. and d.o.j. and i know for good honorable men and women who devoted their careers to defending the constitution, there's a lot of gratitude that they can get back to doing their job. >> and thanks to donald j. trump getting back in office. he gave us a clear directive, make america safe. and to start with, the law

enforcement agencies, talking about kash, they didn't go to quantico or risker their live to waste their time and raiding mar-a-lago. all of that is stopping and returning them to core functions fighting violent crime and that's what the great majority of men and women in law enforcement, d.e.a. and f.b.i., that's what they want to do. >> let's talk about one of the most lawless aspects is the open borders we saw and the 12 million imdprants that have come in into this country. you hit the ground running, going after the criminals, murderers, the rapists, child molesters, venezuela wail an gang members tell us what you are doing as attorney general that is making a real difference

and making america safer and number two, i understand you have breaking news concerning my home state of texas. >> i do. the press release isn't out, joint task force alpha that we elevated with the department of justice and f.b.i. and we work with homeland, joint task alpha made a major arrest in mexico and headed to el paso, human smuggling. huge. that's what we do every day. that's why these agents risk their lives every single day. it's human smuggling and a lot of children, a lot of children are safer because of this. >> president trump and his head lines designated the cartels

organizations, what does that allow you to do in your job and kash patel is head of the f.b.i. and what does that give you the ability to do? >> stephen miller is doing a great job -- all right [applause] leading this effort with mike walls. we all works so well together and gives us the ability -- and it gives us the ability to go after them anywhere in the world and treat them as terrorists. they are terrorists. if you are bringing fentanyl in this country and killing our kids you are a terrorist and we are coming after you. >> 300 a day is the average. when you took this job and hear that number and saw the inaction of the last administration, how

angry does that make you? >> i was a state a.g. and fentanyl was just coming on the market. and now this horrible open border policy, just flowing, flowing across our borders and killing kids, killing adults every single day. and it's criminal that no one was doing anything to stop it. i can't comprehend any administration progressive, nor conservative, any administration can tolerate that and ended day one with donald trump. i was at the border back in september and i went with lara trump and we were in yuma, arizona, i saw firsthand there is nothing humanitarian happening at that border. they are raping women who are coming into this country. i saw piles and piles of

passports thrown from every country you can imagine because the biden administration was letting you walk in. if you didn't have a passport, individuals were saying cuba. and walked right in under that administration. border patrol agents told me they saw a little boy and kept recognizing the little boy over and over coming in. because if you came into our country as a family unit. this toddler was being trafficked. how they were bringing him time and time again. he wasn't with his family. who knows what happened to his parents. >> a couple of people gasped at a term you used.

we have been seeing it in texas and arizona and cartels violently rape women and teenaged young girls and hang their underwear in the tree and find a tree down with 10, 20 pairs of underwear as they are mocking law enforcement saying we can do whatever we want and for four years the biden justice department turned a blind eye and facilitated. if you and you started seeing a phenomenon which is single young men showing up with little kids. that isn't a normal pattern of migration but started seeing and

the same kid, the cartels would recycle over and over and over again to bring in criminals. now, let me ask this. what is most effective stopping the invasion at the southern border? >> closing our borders. donald trump has closed our border, but now we have so many of these illegal aliens 18-35 in our country, walking around our country. >> how concerned are you right now about the 12 million illegal aliens who came in under joe biden and risk of terrorism of hamas, hezbollah, jihad, the risk of terrorism targeting

americans? >> it's a huge risk and we all know how bad it is now and that what is donald trump is committed to do is take these people out of our country and deport them and get them off our streets and that's what these law enforcement agencies are doing. laken riley, that beautiful young woman, laken riley, the most prominent name but look how many laken rileys are out there. >> the numbers every day. and i got to say, already in the first two weeks, you have sued new york and sued chicago -- >> you can clap for that. [applause] >> sanctuary cities and i have to say massachusetts in particular, last podcast we

talked about that, how massachusetts continues to this day to have violent child rapists, illegal immigrants they release on the streets and refuse to notify i.c.e. these are illegal immigrants that would be deported immediately. and they take criminals who violently rape little kids, let me ask you, what is your message to a mayor to a local official who wants to defile? >> i sued illinois first, chicago, first day, first day and i gave a very strong warning, if you don't comply with the law, you're next. new york. they all got sued in new york and if you don't follow the law, you are going to be next, because we are going to get

violent criminals off our streets. they are endangering the lives of our great men and women in law enforcement. that's what people don't understand. when you are hiding illegal immigrants, you are endangering their lives. it has to stop. >> two weeks into it and been at d.o. j, what is it? is it bad as you thought, better or worse? >> it's worse. worse meaning that department had completely lost its mission of fighting violent crime. look at the weaponization and weaponization ended. and the deep state is very real. i think all of you know that, it's very real and people trying to undermine everything they are doing. three weeks into it and i went

into the department and found glossies of biden, harris and merrick garland hanging up in my office. they're gone. they're gone. a very handsome photo of a man named donald trump. i make light of that, what is happening, in office three weeks and the deep state still has those pictures. that is defiant and that is not going to happen. what we said, most people, the majority of the people are great people who went to law school and became prosecutors and law enforcement agents to fight crime. >> you spent your life as a professional prosecutor. how important is it for you to

get bad guys off the street? >> the drugs flowing into our country, the terrorists, the gangs. all of the gangs, we've got to stop them. and that's why we do what we do. and we all have to work together and working with homeland security has been great. one of the most shocking statistics is the number 300,000 children that they had in custody and lost and do not know where they are and many of those children are being abused and tell me about the efforts that you and the trump administration, the efforts you are doing to find those children and get them out of harm's way. >> top priority and donald trump's top priority. and i truly can't comprehend how

any administration would let that happen and not care. and that's what we are fighting for. when you take a job with this incredible volume, you think how do you do it, how do you focus every day and say if i can save one life, it's worth it. >> it's more than one life. and it is thousands and ultimately more. i want to say something to the folks here at cpac which as many of you all know, we do this podcast on monday, wednesday and friday and roughly a million listeners all over the country and we do this to go around the corporate media to go directly to the american people and to bring the truth and bring the facts. i want to ask everyone here, you scroib to the pod, pull out your

cell phone right now. pull out your cell phone and text the word verdict, text the word verdict to 24005. 24005. when you text verdict, what you'll get back is a link, a link to subscribe to the podcast. if you are under 40, you know what i'm talking about. and if you're not ask your kids or grand kids. but you may know as well if you are here. >> and subscribe doesn't mean it costs you money. >> my dad is 85 and he hears subscribe. there is no charge, it just magicically appears on your phone on monday, wednesday and friday and bring in guests like

the attorney general of the united states and we focus on what is happening, the victories that president trump is winning and the news that the corporate media won't cover. >> 24005. there is a question that i have been dying to ask you and all of the pardons that were given out by joe biden. a lot went to his family and it is what it is. one person he did not pardon, himself. people think there should be accountability. is this something that you should look at while he was president? [applause] >> don't you find it interesting that they attempted to prosecute the the president and he had the security clearance to take them and joe biden had no security

clearance to take them, had him in the garage with his drug addict son. what did they say about him? frail old man. donald trump and i have not talked about that. this is not about targeting. this is not about targeting or weaponization, this is about keeping america safe and going forward and prosecuting violent criminals. if you committed a crime, no one is above the law. no one is above the law. >> so, pam, the media going crazy about new york mayor eric adams and the charges that were dismissed. tell us what the story is and what happened there and why were the charges dismissed? >> he worked on this case and it was an incredibly weak case

filed to make deportation harder. that's why they did it. they took one of the biggist mayors in the country off the playing field in order to protect their sanctuary city. this case, it was about increases in airline tickets in his official capacity. incredibly weak case. that is the weaponization of government. that's bar fare and to keep someone who criticized joe biden who said they took away his security clearance. so he could not help enforce this deportation efforts in new york. these people are going after him. ride a subway in new york, it's

not safe. violent crime is at an all-time high. it's not about weaponization but ending their republic niecessation of the government and fighting violent crimes. and mayors like eric adams to enforce donald trump's immigration policy. >> i want to ask you, you were talking about cartels and set up networks and we see this coming up more often and controlling cities and states and the entire flow and have been able to do this without anyone having to stop them. we are seeing this not on border states but all over the country this network. at what point do we dismantle that? how long does it take? how much time. because they have been here. >> there is a lot i can't talk

about now, but very publicly, but i think a lot of that is happening every day. our law enforcement officers are out there with crist yi noem and we work well together. >> people don't understand this is a group in this administration and you and i talked about. you know each other before you got here. how important are those relationships and say, i trust you? i trust you. i got your back. >> vital. and mike waltz. we are on the phone with each other all the time. just to give you an example. lee zeldin, on presidents day, great administrator, i'm on the phone hours with our secretary of treasury and lee zeldin and

thanks to elon musk, great work and look at what they are doing, i'm changing the subject, but they are giving out billions of dollars after joe biden lost the election trying to push this money out the door. >> shoveling cash out the window. >> gold bars off the ship and we are stopping them and stopping them in real-time. we are going after them. but it's because we pick up the phone and talk directly to each other and able to work together and look at the men like steve, rick and what they are doing with rubio and that is thanks to one man donald trump. >> the consistent thread of the cabinet nominees is that you are all change agents and came in

with the mission. there has never been a first month of any presidency in the history of the united states of america like the last 30 days. and i'll tell you, i have had great joy turning to my democrat colleagues and deadpanning, three years and 11 months to go. and they literally start twitching. they have facial ticks that they cannot suppress. pam, one of the things that people like about this podcast is we try to bring people behind the scenes and understand what is going on behind closed doors. so tell us about your first day as attorney general. you're confirmed and like day one when you get sworn in, give us what day one is like.

>> you go nonstop. it felt like 15 years because you are working 7 days a week nonstop and everything we do overlaps and the department of justice and this money going out to u.s.aid and helping all these agencies but you hit you hit the ground running literally and don't look back. i don't think i have slept in 15 days. you don't want to. when you find out about this human trafficking ring that was just broken up, that is why we are doing what we are doing. you just keep going forward. our directive from our boss is so easy, especially on my end, make america safe. senator, my hardest thing is i

forget to eat. it is 6:00 at night, why do i have a headache? i have not eaten today. it is not me, it is an entire team. we have cash patel -- kash patel now, so they better look out. >> how nice is it to have a boss by the name of donald trump who just lets you do your job? >> exactly. >> there are a lot of presidents who tried to keep their thumb on people. it seems like he is saying go get it done and call me when you need me. >> he has trusted all of us in all the different roles we have, whether it is education or agriculture, all of the different cabinet secretaries , just to go out and do the best we can. we want to make all of you proud.

we want to fulfill his directive to make our country great. that man sure did not need that job. i loved during my confirmation hearing when they get on me because they say i'm friends with donald trump. no, i'm good friends with him. i am very proud to work for him. [applause] >> when you look at weaponization and politicization, part of it is using it to attack your political opponents. we have seen four years of that under joe biden. another part of it is turning the other way at your political allies and refusing to enforce the law against them. one of the most egregious examples over the last two years is the rising anti-semitism on college campus, the violent protesters and rioters, many of whom are not students, ,and they are threatening students. you look at columbia university,

the orthodox rabbi sent and email to the jewish students on campus and said do not come to campus because the university cannot and will not keep you safe. the biden justice department did nothing. they investigated nobody. they did not follow the money. they didn't indict anyone. they didn't prosecute anyone, and they did not enforce title vi of the civil rights laws which say if you are tolerating harassment on the basis of ethnicity or religion, then you will have your federal funds cut off. how is the department of justice different today, and what will your approach be to antisemitism and threats of violence directed against jewish students or any other students on campus? >> we have an october 7 task force we started. we will protect you. when i was a citizen before i had this job, these are not

peaceful protests, we all believe in peaceful protests. on this you are a liberal and you don't want a parent to quietly pray outside an abortion clinic, or a parent at a school board. they will call you a domestic terrorist. i'm screaming at my tv watching these violent protests since october 7. all of our students deserve to be safe. these students who are here on visas who are threatening our american students need to be kicked out of this country. >> amen. [applause] it is refreshingly simple to have an attorney general that has the approach that you are

going to follow the law and enforce the law. that sadly has been missing for the last four years. >> it's pretty basic, isn't it? >> it should not be complicated. let me ask you what keeps you up at night. what scares you in the first two weeks of this job? >> pretty much everything. i don't sleep at night anymore. the drugs, the cartels, maybe i will get a little sleep tonight based on the arrests just made. the children that are being trafficked, things that are personal to me, now you get to help people on a bigger level. most recently, it's really been what elon has been uncovering, the usaid, the waste at epa,

this money, trillions of dollars they believe just being handed out, which is most likely making a round-trip to terrorist organizations. >> you are on the front line of defending the president and elon musk and doge and every day we are seeing democrat attorneys general and democrat interest groups suing the president, suing the federal government, and the department of justice is on the front lines. sadly we are seeing left-wing activist judges issuing nationwide injunctions. tell us about what it is like defending against those lawsuits and give us your thoughts on the authority of one radical district judge to try to run the executive branch. >> two words, we are winning.

>> i like that answer. >> we have one unelected district judge trying to tell president trump, who was elected overwhelmingly by the american people, where federal funds can do. we're winning. even in liberal courts we are winning. if not, we are going to go all the way to the supreme court and keep winning. >> you and i have been friends a long time. i am thrilled with the job you are doing. i was thrilled with the president when he announced her nomination. on behalf of 31 million texans, thank you for stepping forward and answering the call. thank you for pouring your heart into defending this nation and keeping my kids safe, keeping all of our kids safe.

thank you for remaining faithful to the constitution and bill of rights and restoring integrity to the department of justice. >> thank you for fighting for us. >> thank you guys for being here as well. we do this show monday, wednesday and friday, so subscribe. god bless america. ♪ >> great guests coming up. ♪ >> tension is going to

escalate. >> the white house is behind it. ♪ >> i am a faithful watcher of real america's voice. >> that is where the news is. >> freedom, sovereignty, prosperity, the patriots for your foundation is on a mission to make europe great again. globalists elites have led europe into a dead-end street. violent crime has surged because of mass immigration. the green deal has put the future of the american economy at risk. fake ngos are interfering in our democracies. patriots must take action. we bring analysis, organize debates, build a network of patriots to challenge the woke narrative head on. initiates -- patriots for europe foundation. pres. trump: during my second term we will play for alaska like never before. >> i'm excited with what we can

do with president trump in the office. pres. trump: we will work to provide affordable energy to alaska and allies all over the world. >> more exploration. pres. trump: thank you to everyone in alaska and thank you to your great governor. i look forward to a long and enduring future relationship. drill, baby, drill. >> we have a great group of sponsors down at cpac central. make sure you get all the merchandise, see all the companies fighting the woke crap in the country. hear from our breakout panelists and speakers. hear steve bannon. hear everything that is important at cpac. get down to cpac central today. >> ladies and gentlemen, it is time for the doge update. please welcome rob schmidt. ♪

>> hey. man, that is a big crowd. and they are not here for me. how you guys doing? nice vibe this year, right? after the best month we've ever had. good to see you. i'm not going to kill any more time. let's bring out elon musk. ♪ >> hey guys. >> we've got one more surprise

in case this wasn't enough. i will let elon do it. who else is here? >> president milei has a gift for me. >> javier mal -- javier milei, president of argentina, you guys know. why don't we bring him out? ♪ >> thank you. >> this is the chainsaw for bureaucracy. chainsaw! [screaming] [laughter]

all right. >> i love it. >> mr. president, thank you so much. >> thank you, sir. >> nice to meet you. >> we love it. >> where should we put it? >> they want it right here. >> great. a little stage prop. [cheers] >> i love you guys too. thanks, guys, have a seat. >> that was something. >> i am become meme. yeah, pretty much. there is living the dream and there is living the meme.

that is pretty much what is happening. doge started out as a meme, think about it. now it's real. isn't that crazy? but it's cool. >> a year ago, if someone had told you he would be at cpac and working with the president to absolutely shred the government, the swamp, would you ever believe that? >> no. [laughter] >> me neither. >> but it is cool. this is awesome. thanks for your support. [applause] we are trying to get good things done, but also have a good time doing it. [laughter] have a sense of humor, you know? the left wanted to make comedy

illegal, you know, like you can't make fun of anything, comedy sucks, you can't make fun of anything. legalize comedy! yeah! >> we shifted the entire culture in the last few months. the whole culture of the country shifted dramatically because of that election. >> exactly. freedom of speech, having fun again, it seems like we should have a good time. >> it's a great time. everybody in this place is so excited. when you talk to conservatives, everybody is happy. everybody feels this great sense of relief. it really felt bad, especially towards the end it felt really b ad. >> i thought we were heading for a point of no return. that is why it was so essential that president trump win the election and that there be a

republican majority in the house and senate, which thanks to you has been accomplished. >> one of the biggest questions i have is politically you were not really on one side or the other for a long time. now you are on a side. you're sitting here in a maga hat. what was the moment? >> it's like dark gothic maga. [laughter] >> was there a specific moment it all changed? >> yeah, when i realized i was a fool. no, i guess -- i was probably politically neutral for quite a while. leaning a little democrat. >> how do you go from that to this? did they go crazy? >> yeah, they went crazy.

the whole cancel culture, it's trying to stop freedom of speech. infringe upon just in general people's personal freedoms. they just want state control of what you say. they want to take away your guns. and the reason they want to take away your guns is so you cannot oppose them. we just need to restore the fundamental elements of what made america great, which is freedom and opportunity. >> we are seeing a lot of these freedoms disappearing in the west. we are watching europe and knowing they are about 1500 years ahead of us and we are watching how they are devolving. >> in europe they put people in prison for memes. that is insane.

>> they are collapsing. it is a collapsing society. it feels that way. france was nicer 50 years ago than it was today. >> yeah. yeah. >> we love you! >> thanks. love you too. [applause] >> i really wanted to do useful things, like build products, provide products and services that are good. i wasn't that interested in being political, it was just at certain point no choice. >> on the same side of that coin, what is it like from going neutral to being vilified, largely vilified by the media? >> what? no. really?

[laughter] >> you turn on some of these channels, brother, they are angry at you. does it bother you? >> when they are chanting for my death, i suppose that is a little -- [laughter] >> not good. >> the song is not even that good. you call that a death chant? that's nothing, please. it's not even good music. >> there's a lot of music lately. it is not good music either. watching what you are doing with doge, people love it. [cheering] i've always looked at the government and seen this big machine, and they waste because they don't care. you are cutting all this out. everybody in this country knows the government is full of waste, fraud and abuse. the americans love it. watching their reaction politically, i cannot believe how bad they are at responding.

i don't know how you will sit there and scream and complain because they are cutting waste out of the government and try to win another election. >> at this point i'm not sure how much of the left is even real. >> how much was propped up by our money. >> you see these fake rallies where there are hardly any people. the media will frame it and poll six people in the frame, but nobody else is there. it does not have popular support. but then you learn that there is hundreds of billions of dollars going to these so-called ngos, and it's your tax dollars that are funding things that are fundamentally anti-american. >> they are propping up their narrative, a left that i don't think is as strong as they made it seem. >> a massive amount of your tax

dollars is going to legacy media companies directly from the government. [booing] >> that is why we have x. that's why you spent $44 billion. more than it was probably worth, but there was a message. >> freedom is priceless. [applause] >> probably one of the most important investments this country has ever seen. you have to protect the first amendment. not much more important than that. >> i got a lot of criticism when people said that proves he is a huge idiot for $44 billion and now it is worth eight cents. [laughter] but yeah, it was essentially to buy freedom of expression. >> once that is gone, it is all

over. the tyranny is really quick after that. >> all the federal money going to media companies is what helps explain why the legacy media all says the same thing at the same time. it's weird. you put them up, like -- >> they are mouthpieces for the state. that is what we have come to know. scary. >> i like that meme, because they are always saying a threat to our democracy. you just replace democracy with bureaucracy, it makes a lot of sense. [applause] big threat to the bureaucracy. >> let's talk about these doge dividend checks. i know you tweeted, everyone wants a $5,000 check in the

mail? the best part would be knowing where it came from. >> totally. it is money taken away from things that are destructive to the country and from organizations that hate you, to you. that is glorious. the spoils of battle, you know. >> is there traction on that? >> yeah. the president is supportive of that. it sounds like that is something we are going to do. as we are finding savings, that will translate direction -- will translate directly to reductions in tax. >> i think they fired 6000 people at the irs. they were talking about even shutting down the irs. [cheers and applause] i think people should realize the amount of money we send

washington, $5 trillion or $6 trillion a year. one trillion seconds is like 30 years. that is how much we send them and they never seem to have enough. there must be a lot you can cut. >> if you ask me what is the most surprising thing you encountered when you go to d.c.? the most surprising is the scale of the expenditures and how easy it is just when you add caring and competence where it was absent before, you can actually save billions of dollars, sometimes in an hour. it is wild. >> they scoffed at it, a few billion here and there. you can see they don't care. it's such little money compared to how much they are used to wasting. that is what is scary. >> it just shows they really lack empathy for the average

taxpayer who is working hard paying taxes and then they say when million dollars does not matter. i think it matters a lot. what are you talking about? [applause] >> i know the president fairly well. watched him survive two assassination attempts. had the first one not happened, the second one would have got him. without those extra guys they would have not seen the guy poking through the fence at the golf course. >> isn't it mind blowing that this has happened? why have we not learned nothing about that guy? [applause] kash will get to the bottom of it. [applause] >> confirm a couple hours ago. i saw the security detail you had come in was enormous. >> maybe it should be bigger.

[laughter] >> how concerned are you about your safety? you are a wanted man. are you nervous? >> [laughter] i am open to ideas for improving security, i have to tell you. i don't actually have a death wish, i think. it's not that easy. yeah. but i've had the president of el salvador who managed to put in prison 100,000 murderous thugs. he told me, i'm worried about your security. you are worried about my security? [laughter] okay. >> talk about guts to do that down there, and then survive. >> how did you put all those thugs in prison without dying? seems like that would have been not easy. >> one of the president's top attorneys is investigating chuck

schumer for threats against scotus. basically saying we will bring a war to you. the rhetoric, you guys are screwing with things that are not supposed to be messed with. >> we are fighting the matrix. we are fighting the matrix big-time here. it has to be done. >> it certainly does. tell us about fort knox. [laughter] kentucky, it is a military base, tons of gold. >> like 5000 tons of gold. >> give or take. there in the ground. >> we all want to see it. >> i would love to see it. >> this is your gold, by the way. it is the public's gold. >> do you think it is not there? >> i don't know. we just want to see it and make sure someone did not spray paint some letters or something. is this real gold?

bite the bar. part of this, let's have some fun. all of this gold of fort knox, it is the public's gold, so i think you have a right to see it. i think we should do a tour. the president last night i think was in favor of it. that would be cool. it should be a live tour, you can see what is going on, what is behind it. i would watch that. >> are you kidding? >> what is 5000 tons of gold look like? >> it's got to be pretty big. >> there is other stuff and there -- stuff in there. >> are you thinking about auditing the federal reserve as well? >> yeah, sure. >> regulate your economy.

i imagine you think the waste has to be everywhere. >> people ask how can you find waste in d.c.? it is like being in a room and the wall, the roof and the floors are all targets. you can shoot in any direction. you can't miss. it is pretty wild. you push on things a little bit and save billions of dollars. >> scary, isn't it? >> it really is underrated. if you add caring and competence, how much things improve. we find so many totally crazy things. which we are sharing with the public. we post everything we learned. [applause] it's totally wild.

we checked the database on social security. how many alive americans eligible for social security are there? according to the database it is over 400 million. wait a second. how old are they again? we found one person was 306 years old. america did not exist before that time. maybe it is just me, but i think it is a red flag, i don't know. [laughter] >> are there indications there were checks going to any of those people? >> well, yeah -- >> i get the social security administration is dumb, but are they paying these people? i don't know. >> a bunch of money is going. >> 72 billion in waste in seven years. >> the rough estimate from the

government accountability office is over $500 billion a year. with a b. per year. >> on social security? >> no -- on all entitlements. it makes sense when you look from a top level. the $7 trillion of spending by the government, what percentage do you think is fraudulent? a conservative estimate of the $7 trillion would be 10%. >> probably higher than that. >> if the fraud is only 10% of $7 trillion, you have $700 billion worth of fraud. it is really easy to take advantage of the federal government. >> look at covid. everybody got rich during covid.

it is unbelievable. >> in terms of the covid payments, it looks like there was something like $200 billion worth of payment fraud taken by fraudsters out of the country. if there is going to be fraud, it should at least be domestic. [laughter] they managed to get $200 billion out of the country. didn't we notice that? >> let's do immigration for a second. there is this move that trump is going to cut funding, any kind of money that ends up in the hands of illegal immigrants, so if you are funding sanctuary cities, hotels, that is federal money. that is not state money. he's going to cut all that. it is hard to deport 15 million people.

it seems like the move now is let's make it so they leave on their own. if there is no longer a dole system, they are going to go back, especially if there is no work. >> it is important for people out to understand that the biden administration sent any possible money -- if there was money they could send to facilitate and amplify illegal immigration, they sent it. they took money from fema meant for helping americans in distress and sent that money to luxury hotels for illegal immigrants in new york. that is an outrage. it's they actually did that. even after the president signed an exec of order saying it has to stop, the whatever deep state your across still pressed send

on $80 million last week. and now they are mad it got stopped. they are trying to sue to have it be restored. the gumption is unreal. >> do you think a new voter class was the goal when they opened the borders, give them citizenship, give them green cards? >> you don't have to assume some grand conspiracy, you just need to look at base of -- at basic incentives and benefits. if the probability that an illegal is going to vote democrat at some point, whether it is cheating, but eventually they become citizens. the probability is 80% or 90%. look at california where the super majority is dem. the incentive is to maximize the number of illegals in the country.

that is why the biden administration was pushing to get as many illegals as possible and spend every dollar possible, because every one of them is a customer, a voter. the whole thing was a giant voter importation scam. >> pretty obvious. >> very obvious. they created the border act thing where they would literally fly people in. people being flown in at your expense. building a wall does not matter. they are flying them in. >> no other country in the world is as stupid. >> there was an $100 million contract given to some guy in london for the cvp1 app. they are flying illegals into the swing states.

if you have a margin of victory of 20,000 people and fly 200,000 illegals into that state, it won't be a swing state for long. >> may be in four, eight years, it's a long game. >> it is a matter of time. >> it might take a year to get a green card and five years for citizenship. it is an investment that is guaranteed to pay off. >> they remember who brought them in. >> people don't quite appreciate that this was a real scam to tilt the scales of democracy in america. >> treasonous. >> treason. >> one more biden question. when they did the electric car stuff, they tried to box you out, even though you have the only electric car everybody wants. you said biden left these

astronauts in space because he did not want to give you an opportunity to save them, make you look good. do you believe that? >> yeah, absolutely. [laughter] of course. >> i agree. why would he want you to help them come down? >> the biden administration attacking me next level. the department of injustice under the biden administration, they were suing spacex for not hiring asylum-seekers. but it's actually illegal for us to hire asylum-seekers because rocket technology is covered under rules that bans weapons technology. we can only hire permanent residents or citizens. we are damaged if we do it -- damned if we do it, damned if we don't.

how can they sue us for not hiring asylum-seekers? there was a big department of justice case against spacex. obviously it was an antagonistic situation. those astronauts were supposed to be up there for eight days and now they are up there for eight months. does that make any sense? we could have brought them back sooner, but they did not want anyone who supported president trump to look good basically. that is the issue. >> a lot of them are saying the reason you want to get into the treasury is you want to make more money. i've never met someone as rich as you who cared less about money. every time i hear about you you are sleeping on a couch. i don't think you care about money, do you? >> actually --

[laughter] if i steal some social security, i can finally buy nice things. [laughter] >> on that same question, they are talking about you guys are going to end social security, end medicare. i don't imagine that conversation has been had with the president. >> no. the actions we are taking with the support of the president and the agencies is what will save medicare and social security. [applause] if the country goes insolvent, if all the money is spent on paying interest on debt, there's no money left for anything. that is the reason i'm doing this. the debt is getting out of control. the interest on the national

debt now exceeds the entire defense department budget. >> $1 trillion a year in interest. that is unbelievable. >> and rising rapidly. the country is no different from a person. the country over spends, the country goes bankrupt. it is not optional to solve these things. >> we are going to go bankrupt. we are. a couple minutes left here. russia, there is a huge question -- >> oh yeah. people say i am a bought asset of putin. he can't afford me. [applause] think about it. >> you are trying to end a war. any war means you have to

compromise, you have to negotiate with an enemy or adversary. and right now they are lambasting the president for trying a different method to war that they have not been able to end in 3.5 years. they are saying trump is blaming zelenskyy for the invasion. how do you process all of the negativity in trying to end this war? >> first of all, we should have empathy for the people at the front lines. [applause] people have been dying. how many more years is this supposed to go on? imagine if that was your son, your father. what are they dying for? the line of engagement has barely moved for two years. board entrenches -- people are dead in trenches, for what?

it is unreal. the amount of money that is being taken in bribery is disgusting. what is happening is those poor guys are getting sent into a meat grinder for money. that is actually what is going on. it needs to stop. >> trump is so pragmatic on this. he's looking at it and saying ukraine is not our country, it's not a nato ally, i just want to see people not dying on both sides. so many young men have died in ukraine that the army is starting to age out. you have 40 and 50-year-old guys fighting because no one is left in their 20's. think of how many people that is, if you are a humanitarian at all, you have to end the war. get it over with. >> yes. they need to stop dying.

the grift machine has to stop. a lot of people don't realize the president has a lot of empathy. he really cares. he's a good man. [applause] >> i've got one more for you. i have been fascinated by you for a very long time. >> oh, thanks. [laughter] >> i've never seen anyone that can do so many things at the same time, the rockets, the cars. what is it like inside your mind? is it 1000 miles an hour? >> yeah. >> do you sleep? how much do you sleep? [laughter] into us a shirt -- paint us a picture of the inside of the mind of a genius. can you answer that question? >> my mind is a storm. it's a storm.

you did not ask the question, but i think it is worth elaborating on something, which is i grew up in south africa, but my morality was informed by america. i read comic books, dungeons & dragons. i watched american tv shows. it seem like america cared about being the good guys, about doing the right thing. [applause] that is pretty unusual, by the way. >> in the world it is very unusual. most countries don't do that. >> no, they don't. i was like, yeah, you want to

care about what is right. that is what i believe in. >> i gave you a tough one at the end. [applause] >> so, yeah. >> that is great. elon musk. thank you so much. [applause] ♪ [applause]

>> thank you. ♪ [cheers] >> thanks, guys. >> hello, cpac. don't forget to vote in the cpac straw poll. your ideas on your badge. scan the qr code and get your vote in. ♪

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what a glorious day. [applause] hold it. how did i draw the card to follow elon musk? come on, man! you bring out the world's wealthiest guy and i am supposed to follow it? i'm just a crazy irishman. this is a glorious day. you know why it is glorious? kash patel is director of the fbi. confirmed by the united states senate. as was bobby kennedy junior, tulsa gabbert, pete hegseth. didn't they tell you it could not be done? didn't the mainstream media say it cannot be done? it is a glorious day. mitch mcconnell is gone.

he retired. right? you did that. remember on the ukraine vote, remember that? he broke his pick on that. you delivered that, just like you delivered tulsi and bobby and pete and kash. they said trump would not get any of his company members. they got them all because of you. scott bessent today said elon's group in the first 30 days found $55 billion of waste, fraud and abuse. that will add up to $800 billion. in one month they have done that. president trump is so excited. he says hey, i think we can balance the budget. president trump, hang on for a second.

zelenskyy has been put in his place, right? right? and the j6ers are here at cpac! [applause] all of them. from the medium high security prisons to the u.s. penitentiaries, all of them are here. right? they don't like that up there. you don't like the j6ers being here? they are here. the j6ers i think, the j6 choir will play the kennedy center. for a night in honor of their families. in fact, i got an idea. the night that they play, the j6 choir opens with president trump as chairman, we invite all the

families they tried to destroy, and they get to sit in the boxes where the elitess -- elites sit. we take the elite for one night and take them down to the d.c. gulag for one night. think they can handle that? i don't think so either. game likes game, right? game knows game. i tell you what is game, the gentleman sitting and the white house, donald j. trump. days of thunder and years of lightning. every day is christmas day. every day you get more executive orders and actions. it's not going to stop. but you know what is the most important thing of all that? it's you.

you are here today at cpac, you represent the tip of the tip of the spear of the populist nationalist movement. all of that from kash patel to mcconnell leaving to the j6 be ing free, to zelenskyy being put in his place, and elon said it has been nothing but grift. the parents in ukraine did not want them to die. the globalists wanted them to die. you said stop it. you give voice to president trump. why is it so important that all the media is here, the financial times of london, why are they all here? they are not here to see me. they can see me screaming like a madman into a microphone. they can see rob schmidt and elon is everywhere. he's everywhere.

jd vance gave a great speech. you can see jd all the time. president trump will give a magnificent speech on saturday, is he not? [applause] but they get enough of president trump every day, don't think? he calls them into the oval office, he's assigning executive orders and they are throwing these questions. he's like a howitzer. they got enough of president trump. you know what they are really here for, they are here because of you. they can't defeat what they don't understand. they can't destroy what they don't understand, right? they can't contain what they don't understand. from ria -- to beijing to

buenos aires, you name it, in every world capital. every hedge fund, every global consultant, all the money, all the power, all the legislators, you know what they want? they want to understand maga. you know why? you represent the best of the american people. in your righteous indignation, you rose up. you rose up. how many times have i been doing this? what did i tell you last year on this stage? we will win the primary, win the general election and donald trump will return to the white house. all the fake news ridiculed, trump will not win the primary. >> you are right! >> who did they have? nikki haley?

had governor desantis dropped out by the? i don't remember. you had trump's back in those dark days of 2021, did you not? he went to mar-a-lago. they all abandoned him except for you. and they had enough guts and courage taking the cpac in orlando and marched 47 days after he had gone into exile because they stole the 2020 election. >> is there any doubt in your mind that they stole the 2020 election? they stole it! and they know they still it -- they stole it. [applause] they thought you were finished. they were going to debank you.

you are nothing but garbage, nothing but deplorables. you surprised them with hillary clinton in '16 and 74 million, 11 more than we had in 2016 voted when you won the 2020 election. and the reason the j6ers are here is because that was a fedsurrection set up by the justice department. we will show the receipts. they thought trump is finished and you are finished. no. i want you to look within yourself right now at that journey. go back to 2021. go back to your life. go back to the anxiety. trump won but they stole it. remember that?

back on our heels? you did not quit. just like in any military contest, we had a rally point. dust ourselves off, we are charging again. [applause] that is why kash patel is the director of the fbi, why bobby kennedy is the head of the hhs, why tulsi gabbard is at dni, why pete hegseth is at the pentagon. fixed bayonets. you are not going to stop. you know why they fear you ? because they know you are not stoppable. 40% of black men in this country came and voted with you and supported you supported you

supported you. every asian american, this is your home. maga. right? the make america healthy again. we are going to weld maga. you are unstoppable and they know that. you don't think in riyadh they know that? you don't think in rome and berlin they know that? the righteous indignation of the american people. just like the sit theater -- they understand what the american people are doing.

it's common decency. the grit, the determination of the american people is unparalleled. this is why we have our best and brightest on every battlefield throughout world from the south pacific to europe to north africa. what other nation on earth has ever done that? none. only you and you rose up and you said trump is our guy. [applause] is he perfect? he is an imperfect instrument, but general washington an imperfect instrument, abraham lincoln was, and he is one of them. it was divine providence that

won 2016 and it was divine providence's hand that let them steal 20/20 because we had to see depraved they were. and what did you do? did you ever falter. you did not. did you ever doubt? you did not. did you ever question? and it brought us a glorious victory. [applause] ponies in the mainstream media -- the reason these phonies in the mainstream media fear you. they fear you. because they understand you are not beatable. you are not beatable. they have had every shot and i want people to celebrate and come together. understand the toughest part of this war is ahead of us.

maybe decades. it is times people have to lay it all down. you know that. you are not asking for a handout or a pat on the head. you are not asking for a thank you. you are asking where is my musket and bayonet and where do i go over the top? they are all running around. what is the future? we are not worried about 2028 but today and tomorrow and the next day. we did not go back in 2021. it is every single day. you report for duty and we get it done you don't have to answer

me because i will tell you now. the future of america is maga, ok? and the future is donald j trump we want from in 2028. a man like trump comes along only once in a country's history. we want from. nothing will work them up like that. they will say he is a lame zonk

-- lame duck. when they record the history of this age they will not remember me or elon musk or sean hannity. they will remember donald trump and maga. you know why? your agency, your human agency. . we are going to fight and not back off. your agency. they can come up with all the algorithms they want. they can take away half of the economy as far as labor goes

human agency is what drives this forward. your agency. that is why trump -- every 100 years. we have had three. . of course he is. look at what this capital has become. the revolutionary generation never anticipated this imperial capital. if they came back today they would split on the floor. with the easy money and the oligarchs. they would say what we need is a populist, nationalist revolution and donald trump gave them one, right? it is going to get tough. it is going to get hard.

are you going to quit or are you going to back trump? are you prepared to fight? when he made the moral decision to come back from our lago, understand they were going to put him in prison for 700 years and bankrupt him and destroy his family. he came back and said i am in. when they tried to shoot him and assassinate him and he was on the ground, they could have crawled off like any other politician in the world he got up and what did he say? fight. i cannot hear you? >> fight. >> are you prepared to fight for trump? are you prepared to fight for this republic? are you prepared to fight for this country? the hardest, toughest days are ahead, but you know what?

riyadh, berlin, based -- beijing, moscow, the city of london. the only way they win is if we retreat and we will not. fight, fight, fight. amen. god bless you. you are amazing. you have honored every patriot in this country. you have honored them through their -- through your agency. this is all you.

♪ >> standing up for america's families. defending the truth is there are only two genders. they will do anything to stop him but he is not backing down. >> who is aarp really watching

of? partnering with big insurance companies but not -- they will not be spent on unrelated programs. if they believe america's seniors are not watching, think again. >> we will fight for alaska. >> i'm excited about what we can do. >> to provide affordable energy to alaska. >> more production, more exploration. >> thank you to everyone. i look forward to a long and enduring future relationship.

our only problem is getting you to vote. look at your badge. you have a number get your phone out and vote on all the issues that matter. we will have the results soon. >> i started quite a while ago at sea pack and i enjoyed it so much that i came back for a second. then a third and then i said let's run for president. >> it is my honor to introduce to sea pack 2017 our president. i want to thank matt's lap and

his incredible wife and boss. we have been fantastic friends and supporters. i watched them defending me. love you people. you never stop fighting for america and i will never stop fighting for you. we know there are more records to be shattered. more summits to be scaled and more amazing history waiting to be written. the american adventure has only just begun. god bless america and we will see you next year. thank you very much. you never stop fighting for america and i will never stop fighting for you. >> everything they said has been wrong. i don't know how he does it. >> it has always been a battle

against donald trump. >> it's a bright light on the two-tiered system of justice. >> he is stuck in this kind of bureaucratic machination. >> he was clear, if you hit your target, you are golden you can work. >> he's a very inquisitive person. >> he does the same thing in a different medium. he is talking directly to the american people. >> he's a great closer. he understands what the most important issues are. >> not only is america a great country but we americans are good people. >> he stands for everything that is good, everything we need, what needs to be changed. >> think about that from supporter that was demonized, that was criticized, that was targeted. think about that person.

they are winning tonight. the american people have spoken up. >> we look through history. we will never see anything like this again. >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome host of the ben schapiro show, ben shapiro -- shapiro. >> how is it going? how are you? i am not famous for being optimistic. if you ever listened to my show, numerosity -- morosity,

depression may have come over you. but i have never felt more optimistic about the u.s. than i do now. that is thanks to president donald j trump. one of the things that is mysterious about him is the fact that he is not really an ideological conservative. people like me grew up in the movement, reading thomas soul and frederick hayek -- thomas sowell and frederick hayek. i don't think donald trump reads edmund burke. why is this man the most successful conservative president of my lifetime? it's a real question. the thing we need to understand is that more than anything else, and in this era, needed more than anything else, president lives in the world of reality. he has been slandered by media as somebody who creates fictions

of his own and lives within those and says a lot of words that do not always match up with the truth. the reality is that he in his gut lives in the real world, which is why he wins so often, because if you are going to win, you have to acknowledge reality. this is what makes him conservative. conservative some lines up well with reality. the reason that president trump won the last election cycle is because the democratic party completely disconnected themselves from reality in every possible way. they ran screaming with their hair on fire away from reality. president trump embraces reality with both arms. when it comes to economics, president trump only cares about success and economic dynamism and american businesses being

able to build and succeed and understands that in order for those things to happen you have to free from -- free american business from regulation and government and allow businesses to innovate and meritocracy has to be valued more than identity politics. he knows that because he's a businessperson. he has had to make payroll. unlike literally every leader of the democratic party he is not a career politician which means he has always been answerable to reality and when he unleashes another businessman inside the government, that is what a businessman would do. if you came into a business and it was rife with waste, fraud and abuse, you would start firing people and make changes. you would start breaking things and moving. you can see business optimism is

sky writing specifically because of that. meanwhile they do not know what to do because there blue pipeline, which is what federal government is, they take trillions of your dollars and funnel that money out and donald trump came in and broke the pipeline because he lives in the world of reality. and when president trump looks at the situation in ukraine he does not say we will not set an endpoint but go along with this and he says here is the reality. there is a grinding trench warfare situation in ukraine and there's little shot they will be able to win back crimea and we don't want ukraine to fall to the russians so we know an offramp but it is just a question of how we get there.

that is what a practical person does. that is not a person who wants to speak nonsense and nostrums. president trump has broken the mold when it comes to the middle east. the ancient wisdom of the state department, which has been wrong for 80 years, is the only way you achieve peace in the middle east is to make the palestinian issue front and center. president trump ignored it and peace broke out in the middle east. he has thrown 80 table a solution that is breaking people's brains and happens to be the only plausible solution anyone has proposed. babies they had murdered in the gaza strip.

and he says that because he lives in the world of reality. when it comes to china, president trump is a realist. he understands china is an opponent of the u.s. and we need to stand up to chinese predations, stealing our id. he understands a realistic nation cannot have an open border. president trump understands that. all of this sounds commonsensical because it is, but in washington, dc, that is not the way things have been run. instead, people have been so wedded to saying things properly in just the way to get the right coverage in the new york times or wall street journal or whatever media outlet they are pandering to but never think about what wins or loses.

then there is a matter of the reality of our daily lives. president trump understands that what most american once -- most americans want is not identity politics or some bizarre idea of androgyny. use the left has abandoned -- he says things the left has abandoned that were not controversial five minutes ago. president trump understands that has some deep ramifications when you say things that perhaps men have a role to play that is different from women's role. that does not mean women should not be in the workplace and that does not mean men should not take care of the kids but it means men being masculine is a good thing and women being

wives and mothers is a good thing and no country that ignores this can survive and grow and thrive. he acknowledges and knows the thing most americans want whether they are hispanics living on the border of texas or white americans on the border of canada, those things are the same. they want to live in safety, free of crime, and a growing, dynamic economy. they want to share that with their community without the government getting in their way. these are all things that sound so easy but the way that president trump's measures whether anything is true or not is whether it works and that is why he has been so successful. what can we do? i talked for a living. the reality is that -- people say how do i make a difference in politics and obviously there are things we can do.

i spent the last election cycle campaigning with a variety of candidates. aside from all the normal political fighting that steve was fighting about -- the most important thing is to live a reality-based life and be a model to our children and community, to build the social fabric that makes this country work, to create the businesses that make the country function, to engage in everyday common virtue because the truth is he is doing an amazing job of the country also runs because of things we don't know. all the people out there who are just living with their families and bringing out their kids in the correct fashion in a country that is growing and thriving, building and taking those building blocks, he's helping

us. it is our job to build and that is what we should be focused on. we should be focused on the building because that is the project that never ends. the political fight will always be there. there will be losses in the future but the one thing we can do every day is continue to build and thank god he has brought us back to a world of reality where that is possible and where we should build together. thank you so much. and now -- i appreciate it. [applause] and now i want to take the opportunity to welcome out my buddies for -- from the daily wire for an episode of backstage live. ♪

>> no one should clap for michael. >> i know we can drink this delicious whiskey. can we smoke the cigars? washington, dc is a little -- >> what is the worst that could happen? >> welcome to see pack and backstage live. thank you. this is a show that we do once a month at the daily wire.

we will do it again on march 4 will we get the team together and we talk about what is on our mind so this will be different from the other panels that have happened because we have to do add reads. it is ok. it is how we buy the plane tickets to get out here. today is 30 days of donald trump into his second term. [applause] which means even if you don't like him, your 30 days closer to a being over. i want to talk about the amazing things that have happened. one of the most dynamic and energetic beginnings to any presidency in my lifetime. let's talk about how great it has been. >> my favorite thing is difficult because i love when president trump napoleon posted

on twitter and truth social. i loved when jd vance gave lectures on thomistic philosophy on has got to be the presidential pardons. i thought it was important for the pardons to go through. my absolute favorite, the pro-lifers who were unjustly imprisoned by joe biden and the democrats. i ran into one of them outside. these are american heroes. these are virtuous people. they were trampled on by their government and donald trump rectified a major wrong. >> if i were to say my favorite thing, number two, i will get to number one, the number two, my

runner-up is trump talking about potentially taking control of the panama canal. and greenland. maybe we are taking canada. we will see. we have to move the canadians somewhere else. we don't want the canadians. not so much the people. we will move them to reservations up in the arctic. my actual favorite thing is what i think is the end, basically, of the trans agenda, of gender ideology, in this country. the fight -- the fight continues because people will continue victimizing kids but in just a

few weeks we have banning men from women's sports, putting into child castration in the hospitals, defining sex as man and woman. the legal stuff is important but just the bully pulpit and having a person in a position of authority willing to say the obvious thing, which, by the way, is something that someone has -- that everyone has always known, but for a period of time, a lot of people were afraid to say what they knew to be true. thanks to donald trump and a lot of people who have been in the fight. but what they needed was someone in a position of power like donald trump to say this obvious truth thing so i think it is the beginning of the end of gender ideology in this country. >> andrew, you have opinions. >> by far my favorite thing is

the decimation and destruction of the mainstream media. i mean, it has been like that seen in game of thrones where the woman has to walk naked through the streets where people shout shame and throw rotten vegetables at her except better because it is the mainstream media. >> no one wants to see that. >>, this kind of blanket of peace peace -- passed over me because we knew what happened but it could not have happened without trump and it could not have happened without us because of all the jill idiotic expose them for what they were in the benefits, the side benefit of this is it has put a tiny bit of steel and the republican party.

this place we are in now surrounded by media and they think when the new york times says something it is the people talking. they think this is the new york times and my career will be destroyed and they realize a bird has taken a crap on it. >> i have enjoyed this panel because we are living up to our reputation at the daily wire. your favorite thing about trump is us and your favorite thing is your movie and michael is just here for the booze. >> by far the best thing that has happened during the first 30 days was that exchange he had with the afghan lady reporter. if you have not seen it, you should google it because it's one of the funniest things that

has ever happened in the history of the media. it was a reporter from afghanistan who asked president trump a question and he didn't know what she was saying. he said i don't know what you're saying. it was great. that was great as a moment. there have been many such wonderful moments. a bunch of great moments. and elon musk is a walking meme. in terms of actual policy, he has exposed the reality, which is the amount of power aggregated in the executive branch over the course of time is extraordinary and so for two reasons this is important. the democratic party established

that the executive branch was going to be the predominant branch of american government at all power would be centralized in it and then they basically said the republicans cannot touch it. when we run it we will run it and put permanent employees in place so that when you run it you will not run appeared donald trump said guess he was the president now and you put out an executive order saying all of you people work for me and here is a reminder. the executive branch is a branch of government. thus you work for my agenda. this is great for my point. i think it sets up the predicate for if there is going to be a useful constitutional fight, then let that be about the prerogatives of congress.

let congress go back to a structure in a fair way. . the rules apply when republicans in power and then they stop apply. there is no set and he says you can either work for me or you're fired which is wonderful. >> my favorite thing is the sheer chaotic disruption that donald trump represents. everything from saying he will build trumpistan in the middle east -- it is a work in progress. i love it because what it says is the way you have been thinking about this for the lifetime of every person

involved in international politics is involved and it's not that i disagree with every one the disruptions but i agree with the disruption itself because only through that to you shake things up to the status quo and i think president trump understands this and wields it. half of the things donald trump says he does not exactly mean but he understands in the active saying it he breaks everyone out of their comfort zone and creates the opportunity for meaningful change and that is an enormous skill. it is something he has been doing in his business life for all of living memory. the is extremely old. he keeps people from being able to get -- to believe that just because something has been the way that it must continue. you see it particularly in places like d.o.g.e. i think he is the greatest

living american. you should clap. he's probably still here and anyone of us at any moment could be the recipient of one of his children so it's a really important thing to stay on his good side. i think he is one of the only people in the world actively trying to build a future. for too long, the left has been the only ideological movement in the country that believes there will be a future and the truth they believe in is one that does not include us and the people on the right have given up on the idea of a future. we have become nihilistic and conspiratorial and afraid that tomorrow must be worse than today. elon does not subscribe to that at all. he is actively working to make that happen. and that is what you want in the government.

we are going to take questions and i believe the place we are going to take questions is down there but i don't know where that means but we will spend a lot of our time interacting with you because you bought the tickets and we hear from each other all day every day. i know what they wanted in the green room. only green eminence. first >> let's talk about how you stay healthy because let's be real. you need to stay healthy. if you wish to stay healthy, balance of nature fruits and vegetables will make it happen. there's never been a more convenient dietary supplement. imagine trying to eat 31 different fruits and vegetables every day. that sounds horrible.

they freeze dry them and turn them into a batter and put them in a capsule. i can pop those directly into a smoothie and that keeps me looking like a greek god. i can promise you i am jack. believe me or don't. that is your choice. but you should take balance of nature fruits and vegetables. use promo code backstage for 35 percent off and get a free bottle. >> that was one of the most powerful remarks ever delivered on this stage. >> you are sitting next to the man who called for the eradication of transgenderism. >> eradicate ill health from your body forever. >> so one of the things we like

to do is move beyond just politics and talk about culture, religion, things that make our lives meaningful. one thing that has been on my mind -- >> blake lively. >> how did you know? when we are in these triumphant political moments, it can seem suddenly like your life is going to be good because we are winning in the important but abstract realm of politics. the truth is your life may continue to be quite bad. >> everybody is in a good mood and then he is like you will die. >> your life may have been good these last four years while joe biden was president even though things in our national politics were going poorly. it is important to reflect on what are the things we can do in our own lives to ensure we are living lives that are honoring to god, productive for our

family and country? it cannot just be that we are watching news. it cannot just be that we are actively engaged in politics. how are we to live our lives in light of this? >> there's a debate that is on the right and it's become more emphasized and it's an old debate between the classical and more modern understanding of freedom and the way it is usually summarized is freedom is not the ability to do what we wish but the right to do what we ought and i subscribe to that view of things but what that means is what jeremy is saying, which is that the ways in which our freedoms have been restricted in recent years, by joe biden certainly and many liberals, is he denied us the right to do what we ought to do. he said if you go to your church you are going to be spied on by the fbi. if you run a catholic hospital,

we are going to sue you. if you pray peacefully in front of a planned parenthood abortion mill we will throw you in prison. you see this in the attacks on marriage, education. we could be here all night listing these attacks and what we have a right to do. now we have the right to do those things. from has passed executive orders that have really taken the government out of the business of oppressing christians and families and kids and the like, but that means we now have to go to church. that means we have to form our families. we have to educate our kids. we have the right to do those things. we have our freedom back but that doesn't mean anything. it is like free speech does not mean anything if you don't have anything to say so you have to live out those substantive goods in your life.

>> it is this kind of trick about being conservative. now you are free. what are you going to do? it comes down to us. it is not about please do this and pass this program. it is get rid of that stuff so i can do the things i want. the thing about donald trump is movements happen almost organically, almost by themselves. i have worked in the arts my whole life and you see someone who changes the game and that is true of donald trump. he is at the head of a movement that is organically happening. that has a lot to do with our friend. the arguments that for hundreds of years have slowly drained the

faith out of western culture have collapsed scientifically, morally, experientially, and so god is now in with the intellectual crowd, and i think that this is the moment for us, each of us, to ask ourselves who is this god and what does he want from me, because every single part the planet knows he is not yet the person he was made to be. i think that is something everybody should be doing. and we make stuff out of art and who you are in working toward becoming who you are is something you cannot do alone and i think this is the moment to reconsider what that means to

believe and what it means in our personal lives and act it out and live it. >> i also think about god every day and about how you are not yet the man you were made to be. >> and he calls me. >> matt. >> what was the question? >> i am having trouble getting over through calling god uncle god -- over true drew >> so many of our institutions have been corrupted by the left and the intention is to destroy all of them. a huge number

stop may sing -- because the world is filled with wrongs and injustices. it is another thing to look at your own failure and not say what can i fix but instead look out the ash that is a

terrible way to go out -- that is a terrible way to get it --to go about your life. the answer to finding a good marriage is to find a good woman and engage in a good marriage the answer to finding yourself a better church is to find a better church. and politics is going to solve those problems. if that and that to me is a sin. >> yeah.

>> i was in a dialogue with someone online talking about how because divorce laws are punitive towards men that marriage itself should be eradicated and this person kept saying my wife left me and she destroyed my relationship with my children, took the house. i did not want a divorce. and he had tons of followers and was creating tons of energy around this argument. i said there is no question divorce laws are punitive toward men and should be changed. the incentives around marriage have become inverted to the bathwater. i said there you go. the policy you are actually

against is the policy of you, of consequence. >> the 10 commandments. >> uncle god's policies. it is numberless the case but most -- that most of what your life will be what you make of it. the beauty of politics is we have the opportunity to do something about those policies that impede our ability to live our lives. i was talking to mike. he mentioned there are 8 million open jobs in this country. there are 7 million working age men who were not just unemployed. they have removed themselves from the workforce. they are not looking for a job. they feel disenfranchised but they are also participating in their own disenfranchisement. one of the things i have learned in life and in business, sometimes people have succeeded that will tell you businesses

about fail until you make it. that is not true. success is about fail, fail, fail, fail, and with luck you have made it along the way. it's like being a batter in the major leagues. if you get a hit three out of 10 times in the major leagues, you will be in the hall of fame. there will be statues of you in your hometown. you did not get a hit 70% of the time. and it is not as though when you did get one you only hit from there on out. it is you missed, missed, missed, got a hit. most of the times when you got to hit you still didn't score. you got thrown out at second or the batter behind you was the third out and you got your hit and got on base for no reason. sometimes you score and you didn't earn it. >> sometimes you pop it up of

the infield fly rule goes into effect and nobody even knows what is happening in the game. i lost the analogy. >> all that matters is that you keep batting. that is the only difference -- it is not the only difference but the fundamental difference between people who make it in baseball and people who do not. it is true in almost every aspect and it's your ability to take life as it is and take the hard parts of life and keep getting backup. >> speaking of the hard parts of life, taxes. he just fired thousands of people at the irs. unfortunately you don't have a choice. tax day is just around the corner. don't think just because trump and elon are going through that you will not have to pay your taxes. you eventually will but you don't have to worry about your

tax issues with tax network usa. tax network usa has a preferred direct line to the irs, meaning they know which agents to deal with and which to avoid with proven strategies to settle tax problems in your favor. they have already resolved over $1 billion in tax issues. you can protect yourself from property seizures and bank levies. do not let the irs to control your future and don't count on the irs agent on your case losing their job. maybe it will happen but eventually they will go after your taxes. call or visit the website. tnusa.com/dailywire. >> clap. >> we like to take questions

from our subscribers during our show. they are the people who make it possible for us to doing the work we do. we will take questions. ben has a policy that if you disagree, to the front of the line -- disagree, come to the front of the line. i have the opposite policy. we will take our first question. >> my name is luke and i am a subscriber so thank you for what you do. i am also getting into cigars. >> tonight is the night. >> pass this back. >> thank you. >> you can just venmo me for about $15. >> please be 18. >> i think it is 21 now. >> as a young conservative who

wants to focus on new business and an entrepreneurial spirit, how should i go about integrating my views into my business? >> it depends on the kind of business you are founding. there are certain things that are baseline conservative like be honest and don't try to cheat people. in my face, the jewish faith, it says the first thing that god will ask you after you die was where you honest in your business dealings? when it comes to actually forming a business, the hard part of business, and jeremy can talk about this, is actually being cold-blooded enough to look at what is working and what is not. you are not doing anyone any kindnesses by keeping people in the wrong position for too long. but it is important that for your business to be a success or

employ other people that you actually make those hard decisions and i think that requires a certain level of emotional remove and you have to understand you are not doing anybody favors by keeping them in a position where they ought not be. that also includes the reality that you have to take the blame on yourself if you hired the wrong person. it is your job as a company to put the people in the right position to succeed. >> you are integrating your values into the business. i do not know what your business is. maybe you said it. i have not been paying attention. >> i have not. >> integrate them as in live according to your values. what you don't need to do and probably should not do is say this is my business and this is the conservative version of this business. you not need to be that.

just do your business and do it well and if you are living according to your values than you are already the conservative version of that business. >> thank you. >> my name is christy clark. i am asking this question for my 14-year-old daughter. she loves you all. she watches you all the time. matt, super uncomfortable movie. i don't know how you sat there and did that, but that was amazing. >> it is because i am a sociopath. that is how. that's my secret. >> my question for my daughter if you want to be just like you -- for my daughter is she wants to be just like you. she wants to do this in life. how does she get started even at 14 in the world that we live in where she is pro trump, pro-republican?

what does she do at this age to be you and take over daily wire? >> eventually it will be for sale. i think that -- i started writing a syndicated column when i was 17, not much older than your daughter is now. the key, and this is true in virtually all businesses but certainly when it comes to political commentary, you have to learn an awful lot and do a lot of work for free. there is no one who is a success in any business who was not not a failure for a long time. everyone who was an overnight success was an overnight success 10 years in the making. the piers morgan interview was fully a decade after i started doing what i was doing. the other thing i would say is she should attempt to find a niche where you are a specialist in the thing. you could know a lot about a

particular topic or you can be willing to report on when that -- on that and that makes you a marketable commodity. everyone in the room could be a political columnist. there is a difference between that and being a person who does the research and the hard work nobody else wants to do. one of my mentors said if you have a cell phone with a camera you are now a reporter. that is one way i encourage young people to get started. there are stories all around you of things that require change. get those stories, hook up with an outlet like ours -- we will report it. >> one of the great advantages if you want to be successful in media is it requires no talent to do media at all so if your daughter has talent she is already a step ahead. >> is it a disadvantage? to your point on reading, one thing i would say, especially if your daughter is 14, which is great.

i was a political junkie from the age of at least six. i was campaigning for bob dole in my first grade classroom. i was more excited about bob tilden bob dole was. now it is very easy to become famous or infamous at a young age because of social media and cameras and she should resist that urge because you have to read, like, anything, because nobody reads anything anymore. however, if you want to have a view of politics that is solid, that is stable, that will deepen over time, but that is grounded in something, you have to read a billion books and it's just not possible to do that at 14, so i would recommend figuring out what she thinks, get the book learning, get the practical learning. i worked on campaigns as a teenager and in my 20's. it taught me a lot that you cannot learn in books.

and then when she is ready, 16, 17, 28, 29, she can make a big splash and be ready to go and have something that distinguishes her from everybody else. >> my name is blake. i'm a subscriber and my question here -- i'm a college student and throughout my education i have questioned dei and a lot of subjective business measures. what i am wondering is how you guys would challenge these viewpoints and move throughout my >> one thing i would say is it can be easy to be tempted toward an absolute answer on a question like this. some people will say keep your head down and get your degree, you are paying to be there, the most important thing is to not rock the boat, you need something in exchange for your money and time.

other people say you should be fighting all the way, defending your rights, be active, but you have to live your life and none of the people giving you advice on this topic do pure only -- do. only you know what kind of career you want to build in your life on the other side of your time in college, some more dependent on getting the degree than others. one thing you should not do is live your life out of fear. if you find yourself living your life out of fear, you might make a cynical calculation that on the other side i will be successful, that's a deal with the devil you can't walk back. it doesn't mean you have to be reckless in every situation. i've made a choice from a young age probably before i can make it consciously, i was way to say

what i believed in every situation and come what may. i've gone through a lot of difficulties because of that decision. i don't necessarily think that's the most virtuous decision, i think it's the most gen x decision. it can contain virtue. sometimes it can contain hubris and recklessness and other things. rather than looking for an absolute answer to the question, the best thing you can do is know yourself, know what you are trying to accomplish, know what fights are worth your time to be in and fight those fights and if you're like me it will be that you won't make any money until you're 30 and that's fine. if you are like ben, you will be writing a syndicated column at 17. >> one more thing, don't lie. you don't have to get into every fight, you don't have to speak up if it's not important or that

big a deal, but don't let them make you lie because some of them will put you down until you have to lie or tell the truth. >> i totally disagree, you can lie. [laughter] >> whatever he says -- every lie takes something out of your soul, every single one, and the bigger the lie, the bigger piece of your soul it takes. >> he's very old, you can lie. you speak up in class and they have these things called blue books, the anonymous test you took my hand. you would write a student number and not your name and then you wrote a comment and you got an a. that's where you lie. >> do you want to be like that look at my wallet, do you want to be like that? >> it so special to be with you

and i must say michael, i had disagree with you and i agree with matt, kids should be -- >> i didn't say they should never be at a wedding but sometimes you throw on the text on you have a few coca-cola's and it's a late-night wedding. [crosstalk] >> on a more serious note, over the years it's become increasingly clear the mainstream media is acting as an arm of the democratic party and anti-american factions although i repeat myself, it's come to a crescendo of the last few election cycles as well as during the covid pandemic, which i witness personally as a medical doctor. most attempt to equate free-speech to nazi era fascism

and it's a new level. they are using our media to undermine and sabotage the united states. with investigation we can easily find which parties are complicit in these efforts. should we conduct such an investigation and if we do, what actions should we take based on the data we find? >> it depends on if you're talking about foreign actors funding american media. i think there should absolutely be congressional investigations looking into funding of various enterprises and propaganda that emerges from those enterprises. if you're talking about the democratic party in cahoots with legacy media, i'm not sure you need an investigation, i think you just need a prefrontal cortex. basic logic suggests the human centipede between the democratic party and the media is an ongoing bleep-show.

what do said earlier was right, legacy media has destroyed itself. the last election cycle destroyed beyond repair and it was exposed by covid. the legacy media was destroyed for all time and i don't think they are going to be able to recover. people don't trust legacy media. it's not recoverable. the washington post is never gonna have the majority of americans that think it's trustworthy again. i'm less worried than of ever been about the legacy media. >> you mentioned human centipede , you are evoking images that are disgusting and obscene and i want you to get your head out of the gutter. i want you to get your minds on the gutters when i tell you about leaf network right now. leaffilter.com.

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reads because i don't have to do this on stage. >> spoiler alert. >> mr. knowles referenced me before. i'm one of the washington pro-lifers that was sentenced to 21 months in jail and we thank president trump for pardoning us. [applause] what i wanted to get a sense of, what i'm feeling a sense of is this really an opportunity for the united states of america to have a full discussion about the horror of abortion. we started to have it in the 1970's -- i'm an old man, i remember it. there started a discussion and then roe v. wade happened.

aside from all the lives lost and the women destroyed, there was also the complete cutting off of discussion on abortion. the media has kept it that way. we've never been able even in the dobbs decision, the developing child before birth is only briefly referenced. in all the other court cases it's about a specific legal angle to the issue. the heart of the issue is the developing child before birth and this license sense is the time, this is the time for this country to take up that discussion and even when i'm in disagreement with president trump as i am on the ivf, it's an opportunity for discussion. so i even thank him for that. i wanted to get feedback on

that. >> and agree with everything you said and it's easy to forget, even several months ago, certainly the last couple of years, we were told even by conservatives our victories, the great victory of repealing roe v. wade was a bad thing politically because we would pay for it, we would pay the price with great backlash and the women of america would rise up to punish us for protecting babies from slaughter and that did not happen. the reason it didn't happen is it turns out, as we've all been saying, people like you have been saying, the pro-life argument is a winning argument, it is a winning argument. and as long as you are honest, the only way to win the argument when you are pro-life is to be brutally honest and show -- we are claiming there is genocide of children happening and 60 million human beings have been slaughtered by abortion, if

that's what we claim and that's what we claim because it's true, there should be passion and even anger behind our words and if there isn't, why would anyone take us seriously. it's like we don't even believe what we are saying. we are not the ones the pro-abortion side are the ones that have to cover everything they say in euphemisms. the euphemisms constantly change because they can't talk simply and clearly about what the thing is good we win the argument by being clear about it because the pro-life argument, the most winning argument of all time. it simply this, it's always wrong to intentionally kill innocent human children. that's it. [applause] i defy any pro-abortion person, any so-called pro-choice person to engage with that. are you saying there are times where it's ok to intentionally

kill an innocent human child and that's what they don't want to engage with. >> this is everything. you are talking about everything, having the argument openly because the war is not going to stop it, it won't be able to stop it. it will still be going on unless they open their eyes and see what they are doing, it's the only way, there will always be murders and people who kill people but if you are a good person, you don't do it and that's an argument we have to win. [applause] >> i am a college student. what would you say to me trying to represent who i am like you guys do everyday. >> i couldn't hear a word you said. >> college is woke and i want to

pursue it i love just like you do. what you do when you have that in your heads, the pause, i need to keep doing what i love to do? >> i'm famously anti-college good i think most people should not go to college. if you want to be a heart surgeon, there's a strong case you should go to college but i think most people who are getting bachelors of fine arts should not be getting them and you might say in a better world than this, those degrees are useful to society. back when we taught things like the western canon, things like philosophy, perhaps a liberal arts degree did prepare people who are going to go into specialized fields, it could prepare them. you're not going to study the

western canon if you go to college. unless you do something particular, i would get a job instead. the thing you have to do in life, everybody likes to focus on the seventh day he will rest, the part before that is six days you will toil. go to work. >> 99% of colleges and 99% of classes in college as won't be able to get a great education. i disagree with my fellow conservatives who sometimes say only go to college if you're going to study engineering or business. i think that's the opposite reason to go to college. you should just get a job or apprenticeship or go to trade school. it's awesome and there is a place for that. if you want to get a university education, the point is not instrumental or utilitarian, is not just to make some money, the point is to get at the truth and the way you do that is immerse

yourself in philosophy and history there's hillsdale cama ave maria and some others you can name, even brand name schools, there are some professors left. my final point, if you find yourself at a woke college that doesn't have great classes, at the very least, you can understand if every menace my teacher and i can learn something from him -- >> but you can learn that for free. >> you did need teachers and mentors. all of that to say, if you are at the woke college, you are making a financially reasonable decision. you can benefit greatly from being around people who are radically leftist because you can understand their arguments much better than they understand your arguments. it will give you an advantage. that's how we win back culture and how we make the best of our

-- hold on a second, or just don't go to college. >> yeah! >> i am the oldest of six kids so my parents definitely understand the difference between a man and a woman. thank you for the movie. i want to ask if you have tips to standing up against the people around me who continue to push gender ideology. i live in a deep blue state and the media still controlled. >> it is important never to acquiesce. it's really important. you're not doing anybody any favors. harsh truth is still better than kind falsehood. telling somebody who is obviously suffering from a mental condition that in reality

, you wouldn't do this and any other circumstance, you wouldn't say to someone anorexic you are right, you are really fat. you would never tell someone suffering from severe depression, maybe you are right. the idea you should can -- and should confirm an unhealthy dilution is wrong. will it make friends? is that person one to go out to dinner with you? no. but they will remember in the darkness of the light summit he was telling them the truth and that is really important. if no one tells him the truth they will never understand the other answer was always there. maybe this isn't a body problem maybe it is a brain problem. that requires different thinking about these issues entirely and matt is the expert on this topic. not only did he make a movie but i heard he is a woman. [laughter] >> i think ben covered it well.

the most important thing, to go to drew's point about never lie, you don't have to go looking for confrontation. we are confrontational, is part of our job, we are wired that way. if you want to look for that, god be with you, but you don't have to do that. you don't have to go jumping on every grenade in the room. don't play the game, don't acquiesce, don't play the language games, that was the big mistake made culturally even among some conservative several years ago where they started playing the language game and they said i just want to be polite. when we start putting politeness over the truth, you've already lost. don't do that and you will be fine. >> i just wanted to ask a

question. why do you pretend it is your show when clearly ben davies is the host? >> fighting words. >> to do we find the one ben davies fan at cpac? sometimes people infiltrate these events. the leftists or disreputable. i found my least favorite infiltrator, the fan of ben davies. although he does run most of the show. >> i also wanted to ask your favorite funny trump story. >> like a personal trump story? i haven't really interacted with the man that much but there was one great time win -- i can't say i wrote a book but i did a

book called reasons to vote for democrats, a comprehensive guide and we have scholars in the audience i see. a blank book. ben schapiro blurred it as thorough. i got a big book deal out of it. i ended up on cable news one morning and the most important fewer of the fox news morning show was watching from the white house. that was president trump. he endorsed the book and it was great. the thing they didn't write about is he also quoted the thing i said beforehand -- i think i was talking about syria policy -- the way he quoted it made it seem like i was the president. i thought this is really cool, the president is making it sound like i am the president, that's a gracious thing for him to do and then he plugged the book. that's my favorite funny trump story but i don't know there are about 10 billion others for

everyone else in the room. >> when matt has movie, i subscribed to that. question to michael knowles, you offered me some whiskey -- >> do we have an extra glass? do we have a cannon? this is your whiskey now. this is great, we are giving people booze. >> this is certainly not legal. >> conservatives are people people. it's like a family, man. >> did you get his id? >> he's like 45.

how many laws are we going to break during this show? >> if this kid asks for cocaine, the answer is no. [laughter] [crosstalk] >> i had a question for matt or michael should as a younger man i was wondering what saint you tried hardest to model yourself after and what saint did you most look up to. >> i will go to the new testament and st. paul has always been the saint i've felt the most connection to. i wanted to choose that as my confirmation name but paul walsh didn't sound right.

the thing i like about st. paul, obviously some of the most beautiful words, some of those words can be found in the paula pistols. i can feel a connection to the fact that -- when you read them, he was quite blunt in the way he talked to people and addressed issues. to me it's a real rebuke of the kind of mr. rogers sort of christianity we've had fed to us, force-fed to us the last several decades because when you go -- even if you read the gospels and the way christ dealt with hypocrites and corruption, you also find it's more aggressive and blunt and direct. not mean-spirited or hateful,

but it's calling the sin out and rebuking it directly. >> my confirmation site -- a saint is thomas but i don't know which one it was because i was a punk kid and i was an atheist and i don't remember if it was because i was doubting or i heard vaguely of thomas aquinas and i heard he was smart. it comes full circle because doubting thomas says let us go with the lord and die with him. st. thomas aquinas is one of the most intelligent people ever to live and was right about everything and a lot more correct about ultimate things than a punk routine-year-old atheist who came out the other end. thomas means twin so i can claim them both. [laughter] >> i am a huge fan. i wanted to ask, what do you have to say about gender

ideologists that use intersex people as a pond for their agenda? >> when you're talking about people who are intersex, these are people who have some sort of genetic disorder in which they develop differently because the gene has crossed over or they develop secondary sexual characteristics, that doesn't make them separate sex anymore than a person born with a third arm would constitute a separate class of human being. a genetic defect is not the same thing. sex is defined by the actual reproductive resource created, the gorse permit. suggesting that because somebody has a birth defect unclear to the outside i what the genetics might be that it means a genetic man who has all the normal

characteristics of a genetic man could theoretically be a woman that is a category and people are lying when they attempt to equate intersects with for example a person who is a genetic mail. >> thank you for spending time with us, enjoy the rest of cpac and the next four years, they will be great. >> thank you. ♪ >> you can watch this program in its entirety if you go to our website, c-span.org. now to remarks --

>> he told fello senators about his decision to retire from the senate. the announcement came on his 83rd birthy. first elected in 1980 four, mr. mcconnell went on to become the longest-serving senate party leader iu. history before stepping down last year, having been elected by his conference both minority jori leader during his career. senator john fetterman who succeeded him this year released a statthat reads in part, senator mcconnell's legacy is nate, the commonwealth of the kentucky and our nation. his contributions wl mean a larefltion of his steady vision, determination and service to the country he loves. >> c-span, democracy unfiltered. funded by these television

companies and more, including wow. the world has changed, today a fast and reliable internet connection is something no one can live without so wow is there are customers with speed, reliability, value and choice. now more than ever it starts with great internet. >> wow supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. president trump ischeduled to address a joint session of congress next month to lay out his priorities and vision for e country during his second term. we will have live covere the president's speech on tuesday, march 4, starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern on sp along with the democratic respsend viewer reaction. corage will stream live on our free video app and c-span.org. at our desk. mr. dans, the last time you were here was june of